It’s no secret that in-flight food can taste different, even dreary, at 35,000 ft. This is largely due to a combination of the dryer air and cabin pressure, which affects our taste buds. In addition, all in-flight meals are cooked and immediately chilled to retain the quality, as well as for hygiene purposes. As such, not all dishes you find delicious on the ground necessarily taste the same up there.
The scene is somewhat changing though. In a bid to enhance passengers’ culinary experience in the air and to retain customer loyalty, airlines are increasingly spicing up their gourmet offerings on board. Dietary needs and technology that makes it easier to order food in advance and get it delivered to the seat have led to airlines offering a smattering of special gourmet meals, a luxury once only enjoyed by affluent travellers.
The new food menu of Vistara—a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines—for instance, reads like an elaborate spread, something one may expect only at an exquisite fine-dining restaurant. Prawns and leek pie with cherry salsa and sautéed beans, cajun-spiced cheese with zucchini steak, matar pulao with mutton bhuna masala, Awadhi paneer, chicken pan-seared in a Japanese marinade—these are just a few of the dishes that any well-established eatery on ground would boast of.
Talking of special meals, Emirates’ flight kitchen in Dubai offers 26 different offerings, from high-fibre to low-calorie, post-weaning to low-purine (for sufferers of kidney stones or gout) meals. The airline also offers religious meals that include a ‘Hindu meal’ (available for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In the non-vegetarian meal, you can opt for lamb, chicken, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, but not beef), a ‘vegetarian Jain meal’ (it does not contain animal products and by-products, and root vegetables such as onions, ginger, garlic, potatoes, carrots, radishes, etc), and ‘kosher meal’ (prepared to comply with Jewish dietary requirements), among others.
04/10/15 Kunal Doley/Financial Express
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The scene is somewhat changing though. In a bid to enhance passengers’ culinary experience in the air and to retain customer loyalty, airlines are increasingly spicing up their gourmet offerings on board. Dietary needs and technology that makes it easier to order food in advance and get it delivered to the seat have led to airlines offering a smattering of special gourmet meals, a luxury once only enjoyed by affluent travellers.
The new food menu of Vistara—a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines—for instance, reads like an elaborate spread, something one may expect only at an exquisite fine-dining restaurant. Prawns and leek pie with cherry salsa and sautéed beans, cajun-spiced cheese with zucchini steak, matar pulao with mutton bhuna masala, Awadhi paneer, chicken pan-seared in a Japanese marinade—these are just a few of the dishes that any well-established eatery on ground would boast of.
Talking of special meals, Emirates’ flight kitchen in Dubai offers 26 different offerings, from high-fibre to low-calorie, post-weaning to low-purine (for sufferers of kidney stones or gout) meals. The airline also offers religious meals that include a ‘Hindu meal’ (available for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In the non-vegetarian meal, you can opt for lamb, chicken, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, but not beef), a ‘vegetarian Jain meal’ (it does not contain animal products and by-products, and root vegetables such as onions, ginger, garlic, potatoes, carrots, radishes, etc), and ‘kosher meal’ (prepared to comply with Jewish dietary requirements), among others.
04/10/15 Kunal Doley/Financial Express
