11 October: Airline food

The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris on this date in 1919. Read on to find out why it's a challenge to airlines to provide great food in the air and some of the ways they try to meet the challenge.

1. The first airline meal, served on 11 October 1919, on a Handley Page flight from London to Paris, was a selection of Sandwiches and fruit.
2. Now, airline food is big business, produced by large companies like LSG Sky Chefs, a subsidiary of Lufthansa. They are the largest airline catering company in the world and produce a million meals every day for over 300 airlines and 191 airports. Other providers include Gate Gourmet, the world’s largest independent airline caterer; Chelsea Food Services, a subsidiary of United Airlines; Servair, a subsidiary of Air France; and Emirates Flight Catering, owned and operated by Emirates. They serve up 192 tons of beef a year.
3. The food is largely cooked on the ground, since both conventional ovens and Microwaves are banned on planes for safety reasons - but they can have dry air convection ovens, which are used to re-heat the food and finish cooking the meat, which will have been partially cooked on the ground. If airline meals seem dry to you, this is possibly why.
4. Food tastes different in the air. The pressure and humidity level in the air affects your taste buds. The dry air in an aircraft cabin slows down the process of transporting taste and smell from the mouth to the Brain. It's a big effect - things will taste 20-50% less sweet or salty. Advice from the food scientists as to the best meal to choose if you can - stew, Rice or Curry.
5. Hence providing you with a tasty meal in the air is a challenge for airlines. Concentrating on unami tasting food and adding more spices are two strategies. A more surprising one is issuing passengers with noise-cancelling headphones. The sounds and pressure in your ear can affect how food tastes, so if you listen to music on your iPod while eating, it will taste better. Tomato juice is more popular in the air than on the ground. Alcoholic drinks change in taste, too, so the drinks served also need to be tested. There are actually people out there who are paid to sit and drink booze on a plane to make sure it tastes all right before it is served to passengers. Nice work if you can get it.
6. Some airlines, such as Singapore Airlines, go to the lengths of having simulated aircraft cabins for their chefs to test the food in. That may be why Singapore Airlines is one of the five airlines critics say serve the best food, along with Austrian Airlines, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Air France.
7. It's a myth that if your flight is delayed by several hours, you're at greater risk of food poisoning because the meals sit there all that time. There are strict regulations in place which demand that in the case of a long delay, the meals are replaced. It's also a myth that airlines put things in the food to calm people down and make them fall asleep. Though as someone who can never, ever, sleep on a plane I'm not sure I'd mind if they did!
8. Left over meals are not taken home by the cabin crew after the flight. In fact, they could be fired for taking the food home. This is because of customs regulations in many countries which prohibit food being brought in. Generally, any left-over food is simply burned, although many airlines and airports are now looking at ways of cutting down the waste and donating the food to charities instead. In some places the cabin crew and airport staff can polish off uneaten meals provided they do so before leaving the airport. Taking an alcoholic drink off a plane could not only get cabin crew fired, but charged with smuggling. That said, some of the uneaten food does make it out of the airport - In India, for example, you may find airline meals, soft drinks and even alcohol from airlines being sold off cheaply at markets. Possibly these items have been smuggled out by staff, or stolen from airport bins.
9. American Airlines saved $40,000 by removing one Olive from each of their salads.
10. A man named Nik Loukas has been documenting every airline meal he has been served since 2012 and publishing his findings on his website. His unusual hobby brought him to the attention of the airlines and he now has a career in airline catering logistics. You can find it at http://www.inflightfeed.com/ireviews/.

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