Bring a picnic

By B.R.

BACK in the days when flying still felt impossibly glamorous (in other words, when Gulliver still hadn’t reached his teens), one of the best things about travelling by air was the in-flight meal. Being served a self-contained tray that housed as many as four distinct courses used to fill me with wonderment. Nevermind that I was on an overcrowded charter flight, en route to an equally ovecrowded Spanish resort: airline food screamed sophistication.

I have long since come to accept that the fare served on planes is, in fact, overcooked, tasteless mush. Still, as the stewardess doles out the chickenorpasta?, a remnant of that childhood anticipation lingers, like cosmic background radiation. At least until the lid is peeled back.

Now, Heathrow airport has come up with a fine way to mitigate that inevitable feeling of disappointment: the “onboard picnic”. Passengers passing through the world’s fourth-busiest hub can pick up a hamper from any of its 118 food outlets to take aboard the plane with them, whether from the sandwich shop or Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant.

Explains the Daily Telegraph:

The hampers vary in price and size according to venue, but typically cost between £5 and £50 and are around 40 x 20 x 10cm. All are collapsible and designed to be easily stowed away under the seat or in the overhead locker. Some hampers are insulated bags designed to 'ensure the food retains maximum taste and freshness at 35,000 feet', keeping hot food warm and cold food cool, such as the ones from Caviar House which features [sic] an ice compartment.

Gulliver would no doubt miss the feeling of nostalgia, but it is difficult to think of a downside to saying goodbye to airline food. Except, perhaps, the comedy. One of my fondest memories was aboard a Croatian Airlines flight in the early 1990s. Having been handed a tray of chicken and vegetables, I informed the stewardess that I had ordered a vegetarian meal. Once the quizzical look had fallen from her face, she took the food back to the galley. A minute later she returned with a tray of vegetables, in the middle of which there was a distinct chicken-shaped hole.