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Mile high club - MCV - Melbourne Community Voice for Gay and Lesbian Readers

Written by Dark Lord


Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:18 - Last Updated Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:19

Our wandering food writer S.M. King reels in shock at airline food as she returns home.

You don’t expect haute cuisine and linen at 10,000 metres. But, surely, you might expect
more than poor quality cardboard pantomiming as turkey sandwich. This was my displeasure
last week from New York to Los Angeles on an American domestic tin can pretending to be an
airline. To add insult to injury, I forked over around US$20 for this insipid grist.

And, I had to listen to Partner whine, “All this gluten will make me bloat.”

Most domestic American airlines have ditched their complimentary meal service. Here in
Australia, you need to stick with Qantas if you want nosh included in the price of your ticket.
And be sure to fly at lunch or dinner time to expect anything more than a muffin. And gluten
bloat.

Call me perverse, but generally speaking I enjoy the experience of airline food. I love the little
compartmentalised tray; peeling back foil to reveal portions that bear little resemblance to their
menu descriptions; the challenge of dividing the one door-stop slice of cheese between three
crackers with the plastic knife supplied. It helps pass the time, if nothing else.

Things do improve as you move up through the classes, of course. Most often I fly cattle.
Every now and then my gig as a travel writer affords me a freebie in business class. And, on a
few remarkable occasions, first.

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Mile high club - MCV - Melbourne Community Voice for Gay and Lesbian Readers

Written by Dark Lord


Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:18 - Last Updated Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:19

Business and first passengers can expect their meals to be served course-by-course from a
damask draped trolley. Instead of choosing from the printed menu provided, one selects from
the trolley as it wheels past. Here, Partner’s selective gluten-intolerance is warmly tolerated by
agreeable staff. Here, food is served on real plates, saving it from the steamed sameness
afforded by little foil trays.

Half a century ago this was de rigueur for all who took to the skies. These days it’s the
preserve of those behind the curtain, whose private little domain remains a sanctuary from the
lumpen mass.

If you rarely fly in anything but pig pen, though, take heart. Whatever the class, food generally
does all taste the same. Aircraft pressurisation and altitude compromise the tastebuds.

There’s a whole field of science working behind the scenes to inject flavour into that little foil
tray. Over-seasoning is the best defence they’ve presented. If you ate the same thing on the
ground, you’d most likely find it too sweet or salty to endure.

Over the years I’ve consumed many calories in the air. A few of them have been more than
tolerable. I’ve been seduced by yum cha in business on Cathay Pacific, and spoiled forever by
an Arabian mezze in first class on Etihad.

These, it must be said, were a tad better than the Chicken or Beef options down the back.
Hands-down winner, however, came in a little foil tray on Royal Nepal Airlines. It was the best
dhal and rice I’ve ever had, served, gratis, by the national carrier of one of the poorest
countries on the planet.

The memory of it makes the sandwich sold to me by an airline from the world’s richest nation
completely indigestible. So I purchased a ten dollar beer.

“There’s gluten in that,” I warned, as Partner took a swig that’d put Bob Hawke’s record to
shame.

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Mile high club - MCV - Melbourne Community Voice for Gay and Lesbian Readers

Written by Dark Lord


Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:18 - Last Updated Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:19

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