Alrighty folks, put your seatbelts on, locate your nearest exit and put your tray tables UP because I am about to give you my honest thoughts on plane food. It rules. It rocks. It’s so damn good and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.
You see, I don’t just think plane food is good. I think as a baseline, it’s bloody excellent.
Unlimited miso soup on a Japan Airlines flight? Fill me UP. That beef and potato stew they hand out on Singapore Airlines? Drown me in it.
Hell, even Qantas and Jetstar, Australia’s Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of the skies, pull their weight when it comes to food. Sure Miss Q and Mr J don’t really offer up anything unique or different when it comes to on-flight delicacies, but I’ve never had a bad meal. Any meal that comes with a little bread roll and some Lurpak will have me MOANING (which is a good thing, unless you’re the rando who has to sit next to me on the flight).
For millennia the narrative around plane food has been quite volatile.
The words “plane food” are often synonymous with soggy vegetables, egg that doesn’t quite taste like egg and plastic-wrapped cheese slices for dessert.
Sure you still get your odd sad-looking broccoli and strangely pulsating pile of scrambled eggs on certain airlines, but for the most part, the big dogs have really made the push to make taste a priority as well as functionality.
Consider how much food has to be made every day in ready-to-eat containers for the masses. This video alone from Business Insider really made me realise just how efficient airlines are at producing tonnes of meals for folks to guzzle down in the skies. And don’t get me started on the blinding speeds at which they do so.
It’s giving Cooking Mama gold medal.
All that, and yet the food manages to come out pristine, tasty and flavoursome even when re-heated? Talent. Skill. So good.
The next time you’re on a plane and you’re patiently waiting for the flight attendants to FINALLY come down with the magic food tray, remember to really pay attention to what you’re being served up: super tasty food that’s been prepared at lightning speeds but still tastes better than anything your housemate’s new Tinder boyfriend James could ever make at home with all the time in the world.
Hell, plane food is tastier than most things anyone could serve up in the kitchen. My nonna wishes she could recreate that teriyaki salmon over rice that Japan Airlines dishes out. Jamie Oliver has nothing on Vietnam Airlines food.
I might just book a flight to the middle of nowhere just to snack on some tasty plane food offerings. Maybe I’ll bite the bullet and go first class for the first time in my life, I’ve heard the food is even BETTER on the other side.
