Your author has been comparing a variety of business class menus recently, and among some genuinely appetising innovations is a growing realisation that many airlines are still serving the kind of food that gives rise to clichéd humour about airplane food: protein-vegetable-starch meals that don’t reheat well and aren’t especially exciting in the first place.
You’ve seen them, and probably eaten them: beef or chicken, with some sort of brown gravy, a stick or two of asparagus or perhaps a broccoli floret, maybe some peas and carrots from a commercially frozen mix, and then what’s probably potatoes (mashed, or a slab of some sort of gratinated potato dish). And it’s all reheated in the dish in which it’s served, so the green veg is more brown, the gravy goes sticky around the edges, and the milk or cheese proteins in the potatoes start to split around the outside before the middle is fully reheated.
The business class cabin is probably the only place that most people — and even more so people with the means or lifestyle to be flying in a premium cabin — will encounter this kind of reheated bland cuisine, and it’s almost baffling that it’s still seen so often. It feels as if it’s a kind of lowest common denominator selection, a meal of last resort designed more not to offend than to please, and that’s both unambitious and unwise for airlines.
It’s hard to get real flavour with this kind of meal. Image: John Walton
Sure, there may well be caterers and airports where there are quality and consistency issues, or routes where habitual delays mean that food gets over-reheated. But the problem is that the protein-veggie-starch option actually ends up worse than other choices in those circumstances, because it’s much less forgiving in both the cooking and reheating process.
What’s more, it’s been a decade since molecular gastronomy specialist Heston Blumenthal worked with British Airways on the programme snappily called “Height Cuisine”, focussing on the umami flavours that are so important for food in the sky, and which are really hard to get on reheated roast or pan-fried food because the Maillard reaction (which creates the umami) gets wet and dissolves during reheating.
This meal — from first class! — is a good example of how not to do it. Image: John Walton
One alternative that seems like it should be obvious is to lean towards options from various national cuisines that are widely popular and familiar thanks to diaspora restaurants. Indian, Thai or Chinese food are all great options, and indeed many frequent flyers select the Asian Vegetarian special meal because the average curry from an airline caterer is miles better than the average meat-and-two-veg.
Even if carriers want to lean more towards something European, there are great options in the form of stews and slow-cooked dishes that retain moisture, flavour and tenderness via the cooking process — and in many cases actually benefit from some extra time to let the flavours blend together before reheating. Julia Child made beef bourguignon iconic in the US partly because it’s very forgiving.
Other great French options include a navarin of lamb, or coq au vin for chicken, or a beef daube from Provence. British options might be a Lancashire hotpot, or a Welsh cawl, or Scouse from Liverpool, or the national dish of chicken tikka masala. Hungarian pörkölt or goulash, Irish stew, hachee from the Netherlands… and that’s even before we get into delicious noodle dishes like Singaporean laksa, dan dan mian from China, or Japanese ramen, soba and udon.
All of these are delicious, easy to eat and reheat well — and with a little care and attention they can be snazzed up to look deliciously premium. With a few sprigs of microgreens or fresh herbs, perhaps a drizzle of a herbed oil or chhonk, and ideally plated up rather than being cooked and served à la doggy-dish, with a flatbread or a mixed rice side, they look the part too.
Avoiding the doggy dish dinner is a good start. Image: John Walton
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Featured image credited to John Walton
