So you're on a plane. Before you is a dish that has just been brought. But instead of the long-awaited dinner, something terrible is looking at you. And this is not always the fault of the chef, everything is a little more complicated.
Food warms up
To the fact that the journey does not take place on the ground, but in the air, let us add the uneasy structure of the aircraft. All this greatly complicates the preparation of food. There are a number of technical restrictions (for example, compressed air in the cabin), which do not allow cooking in an airplane, which means that there remains only one option - to warm up.
Aircraft regularly fly at an altitude of about 40,000 feet, but the pressure is considered comfortable only when the plane is at an altitude of six to nine thousand feet above sea level. Scientists have found that when an airplane reaches a greater height, our taste buds perceive food a little differently, and even a high-quality product may seem tasteless to us. As for the reheated food, the result is even worse.
“In fact, it’s very difficult to cook in such conditions,” explains John Hansman, head of the International Air Transport Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “and, as a rule, they simply heat up a ready-made dish.”
The point here is not only that it would be very difficult to cook on board the aircraft, just feeding the passengers in this way is basically more convenient in all respects. People prefer those dishes that are tasty and, importantly, convenient to eat. As a rule, it is heated meat in a liquid sauce, which compensates for the dryness of the air (air at high altitude is comparable to the air in the desert). The sauce and the slow reheat time are perfectly combined with the cutlery on the plane, among which there is not a single sharpened knife.
Everything is so overcooked, overcooked and re-heated to be cut with a fork.
“Airlines have realized that for such food you practically don’t need a knife,” said Guillaume de Sillon, a professor at Albright College in Pennsylvania who studies the history of technology, in particular aviation.
More passengers, more aircraft size - less attention to individual orders
Nowadays, passenger planes are designed to accommodate more than 300 passengers, each of whom wants his dish laid before him clearly on schedule. Even before airplanes became popular public transport in the 1960s, there were very few passengers, usually less than 50 people. This gave the flight attendants time to personally pay attention to each passenger and his taste preferences.
The menu of that time would have seemed too generous for modern travelers. You were offered custom-made omelets or mobile countertops with dishes that were cut right in front of you. But the good old days are long gone. Now, flight attendants have to serve hundreds of people, and they no longer have time to cut salads in front of you, because besides you, under their care, there is still a whole plane of passengers.
Modern airlines can not offer passengers such a huge assortment of food, as in the 60s and 70s. But this does not mean that the former menu has completely disappeared. It would be more correct to say that it was replaced with a menu of another kind.
The primary task is to distract passengers during the flight, and not to feed
Passengers are offered music, often Wi-Fi and, most importantly, a huge “menu” of movies and TV shows for every taste that personal screens can be found in front of your neighbor instead of large screens in the center. Having installed such monitors, the airlines managed to divert the attention of passengers from food, allowing themselves to reduce food costs and spend more money on various kinds of entertainment for travelers.
Since the start of commercial air travel, technology has taken a huge step. But all these changes have led to the fact that the quality of food has deteriorated significantly.
How can new aircraft affect the future of food in airplanes?
Initially, the aircraft did not have enough engine power to generate enough electrical energy to heat the food. This meant that passengers were largely limited in their choice of food. They could offer only lunches in packs and similar dishes, which could be easily prepared and packed on the ground. As a rule, these were sandwiches or cold snacks.
When the planes became bigger and more powerful, the airlines began to embed real kitchens in their planes, thus preparing the ground for preparing the hot dishes that are served today. This gave rise to competition between airlines, each of which tried to outperform the culinary solutions of the other.
However, today the cost of a ticket plays a crucial role in this competition, and by cutting down the menu, you can free up valuable space, which will reduce the price.
You can save money on food
Even more benefits can be obtained by completely removing the kitchen from the plane. “Today, airlines make many mandatory services optional. Thus, they give the consumer the right to decide what exactly he needs, ”said Bob Van der Linden, curator of air transport at the National Air & Space Museum in the USA. “This is a market. This is a clean economy. After deregulation in 1978, airlines are free to compete, as they like - and they have found the best way to compete - low prices, ”he says.
“In an effort to reduce the price of tickets, many airlines tried to put more seats on the plane. Partly for this reason, you may notice that on some planes there are no hot dishes at all. By removing the caboose, they were able to free up some space under the seats, ”said Hansman. According to him, even the size of stands for food is reduced, because airlines are trying to maximize every inch of space on board.
The fact that they cut the space allotted for food does not mean that the food has completely disappeared. But in the course of how airlines seek to cut costs and fight for every centimeter in the cabin, they gradually move in the opposite direction.
“We are going back to the times when food was brought in boxes. So it all began in the USA in the early 30s and 40s. This is something that can be easily moved, something that does not spoil, something that we take with us on a picnic. Just lunch in a box, ”says Van der Linden.
In fact, everything is not so bad. Watch a movie, eat a sandwich and fly across the sky! In the end, this is just a trip to where a real, hot and fragrant dish is waiting for you.
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment