Food in the Air and Space

by Richard Foss

  Image from author’s collection

  Some airlines that hadn’t invested in jets tried the same strategy that United had used over twenty years before to attract passengers to their flights: upgraded meal service. Northwest offered what they called Regal Imperial service on their Stratocruisers between Chicago and Florida in 1959. For only three dollars over the economy price, passengers were offered a menu that reflects the faux multiculturalism of the era:

  Scandinavian pastries and coffee as soon as the plane is airborne.

  Hors d’oeuvres: Shrimp in Indian currie (sic) sauce, frankfurters and meatballs in customized (sic) sauce.

  Wintergreen-scented hot and cold towels.

  Starter service: Lobster cocktail, salad, and consommé.

  Choice prime beef, or on Fridays, choice of beef or lobster tail, duchess potatoes.

  Choice of Italian white wine, French red wine, or champagne (from New York).

  Dessert: French pastries or cheesecake or cheese and crackers, with coffee.

  After-dinner beverage service, from magnums.

  Fancy after-dinner mints.

  The menu was the same out of Miami, except that a “limeade cooler frappe” replaced the coffee service at the beginning of the flight.10 The three-dollar extra charge for this kind of service smacks of desperation; Northwest didn’t get jets until 1964, six years after their competitor National Airlines, and they were willing to do almost anything to lure business away from them.

  One airline had a few aircraft that were so old that they were flying museum pieces—in 1960 Mohawk Airlines still operated prewar DC-3s on flights from Buffalo to Boston, making two stops. Some marketing genius decided that since the aircraft were archaic, they might as well be decorated that way. Mohawk painted them to look like Victorian railroad cars, appointed the interiors with red velvet curtains, fake gaslamps, and brocade wallpaper, and Mohawk’s gaslight service was born. Stewardesses dressed like dance hall girls solemnly requested that passengers not open the windows when the aircraft was going through tunnels and passed out pretzels, beer, and cigars. The promotion was so popular that instead of retiring the aircraft after a year as had been planned, Mohawk bought another one, painted it the same way, and expanded the service. The DC-3’s last scheduled commercial flights in the United States ended on cheerful note. Mohawk’s profits on the service helped make them enough money to buy jets, and they became the first regional American carrier to do so.

  Small airlines on competitive routes that didn’t have the genius of Mohawk’s marketing department or the money to buy jets were faced with a dark choice: merge or go bankrupt. The CAB, which regulated American carriers, didn’t like bankruptcies and forced several carriers into “negotiations” that could have only one outcome. Venerable names disappeared, strong carriers got stronger and extended jet service, and with it better food service, to places that had previously been underserved.

  The opposite happened internationally, where government-owned or subsidized airlines were often given preferential loans to buy private competitors. Only in Britain was there much competition, as several small carriers arose to provide service within the country and to points in Europe and Africa.

  The logistics of inflight meals were also different in Europe, where most airlines operated their own catering departments or contracted piecemeal with local firms. Catering was seen as a loss-making division by most airlines and not worth investing money in, so food continued to be delivered to aircraft in a motley collection of vans, pickup trucks, and even modified bicycles with large baskets. Given that BOAC and BEA were serving over ten thousand meals a day in the air, some consisting of six or seven courses, this was a huge volume of food to be loaded using antiquated methods.11 BEA didn’t set up their own catering center at London-Heathrow until 1967, almost a decade after most American carriers had sophisticated operations on-site.

  The complexity of catering was magnified by a proliferation of classes on some international aircraft. In 1959 BOAC had four different classes of service on some long routes: De Luxe, First Class, Tourist, and Economy. Pan Am—at that time exclusively an international airline—never went that far, but even for their trained personnel, the new pattern of service was a challenge. Pan Am purser Sam Toaramina noted that for crews who were used to flying boats and jets, even though the first-class service was simplified, it took some getting used to.

  We had to go back to school because the service was entirely different. You set up a table, you put the condiments down first, and then you put your roll ups there. Then you bring up the food individually. The salads come out first, or soup service, then the entrées. Then you clean all that up and come out with a dessert. Later on, they started with a cheese cart. All different kinds of cheeses on it, and fruit. Then you come out with another dessert cart with gourmet pies, cakes, etc. and you went through that service. . . . It was a little more work because you had double the people or triple the people on there. You had to coordinate your flight, because the aircraft was so much faster. . . . I didn’t want to be serving you lunch on your landing, going into London. I wanted that last hour for you to prepare for your arrival, not eating.

  A Pan Am promotional film from 1958 showed a stewardess serving attractively presented meals on a tray set with linens while a voiceover proclaimed, “Delicious food adds to the enjoyment. It is prepared in four simultaneously operating galleys, where dishes can be cooked in five-minute ovens.”12 Despite the visual presentation of highly individualized service, the meals shown were prepared by an industrial process and only reheated onboard.

  The frozen inflight meals helped Pan Am maintain their American heritage wherever they flew; for example, on Thanksgiving the airline served a full turkey dinner no matter where in the world their aircraft were. A purser named Diane White described a flight in 1967 inside Africa in which

  the shortest leg of the trip from Lagos to Accra . . . was the leg that we had to serve the full turkey meal. We had to dish up everything, but everything, separately. It went from soup to nuts and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert and coffee. (Whipped cream had to be doled out separately.) Economy was full and there were 16 passengers in front and 1 person in the lounge. I was the Purser in front. My legs didn’t touch the ground the entire day, we had to hurry so much. We sent a gal back to help in economy since they were not only full, but engulfed in boxes of food which had to be undone and set up and served somehow, somewhere. So there was only the galley girl and myself. There was a tall good-looking first class passenger, very friendly, whom I enlisted to carve the turkey and I would take it out, while the galley girl put all the other items on the cart and trays. He was delighted! He donned an apron and, as soon as we were ready, he sprang into action. Carved the turkey expertly; the potatoes, gravy, cranberry jelly, beans, etc., etc. were all on the plates and we were able to serve everyone rolls, seconds, etc., etc.13

  The transatlantic rivalry between Pan Am and TWA became fierce, and the latter airline added a new gimmick—since they had the passport information for every passenger, they were able to find out whether someone had a birthday and would surprise them accordingly. Influential Los Angeles Times travel writer Jerry Hulse rhapsodized over this service aboard a flight from Los Angeles to Paris in 1962:

  TWA found out it was my birthday and insisted on throwing a party (the reservations clerks check every passenger’s passport for this very reason). The stewardess brought a vanilla-frosted two-layer cake that spelled out “Best Wishes.” . . . As the movie ended the three stewardesses and steward in the first class section began serving a feast unseen since the Beverly Hills Food & Wine Society banded together last. Before leaving Los Angeles everyone was given a booklet which explained: “A Royal Ambassador meal is a series of impressions . . . the soft clink of cocktail glasses . . . the crisp, frosty tang of expertly mixed drinks . . . tasty snacks. . . .” There was a great deal of clinking all right; t
he beverage list alone contained 36 drinks. . . . This was merely the beginning—just a warm-up for dishes to come, such as Beluga caviar, smoked Nova Scotia salmon and fresh lobster medallion. Among other selections were just about anything you can name from chateaubriands to hot dogs and hamburgers. They even served malts to those who asked for them. The list contained so many selections this column would run overtime telling about them. But just to name a few: Le Canard a L’Orange Au Grand Mariner, or duckling with orange sauce; Les Filets de Sole Ambassadeur—meaning filet of sole with truffles and mushrooms. Sirloin steak, roast filet of beef, double thick lamb chops, etc. As for the salad, it was composed of hearts of palm imported from Argentina. Dawn was breaking as the meal ended. Through a rent in the clouds I caught a glimpse of the River Seine twisting through Paris. It was like coming home. Vive le TWA!14

  Since at that time TWA did not get the passengers’ passport information prior to check-in, they must have had time to order a cake and have it decorated within the two hours between check-in and flight departure. This was presumably from one of the airport restaurants, and the incident illustrates one more advantage of having catering companies operating restaurants in the terminals.

  All airlines that could afford to buy jets benefited from both the popularity of their fast flights and the economics of mass transport, and they plowed some of the profits into superior food service. This included some newcomers to the industry, carriers from former colonial nations that turned flights into celebrations of their culture. East African Airways flew the redesigned De Havilland Comets, neither the fastest nor most comfortable aircraft, but as early as 1960 they offered a choice of European or African vegetarian meals on all flights. With Air India, they were among the few carriers serving distinctively non-European meals, and in the decade to come others would follow their lead. They were behind most carriers in the United States in terms of the technology of their catering, which was still done with a motley assortment of vans, trucks, and the like, but culturally ahead of their time.

  One carrier flouted all the standards of the industry; when non-IATA carrier Cathay Pacific introduced jet service from Hong Kong in 1964, they did something very unusual and offered contemporary cuisine instead of re-creating old favorites. This was remarkable because conventional wisdom held that in stressful conditions of travel, passengers would prefer comfort food that reminded them as much of safe, homelike meals as possible.15 Cathay Pacific’s multicultural menus included shark’s fin or kangaroo tail soup, full smorgasbords of the type that were banned from SAS, and most surprisingly, flamed baked Alaska on their flights.16

  European carriers also served luxurious meals, none more so than Alitalia, which benefited from some of the most lavish government subsidies in the world. Beginning in 1960 their DC-8s offered a continuous parade of food starting as soon as the aircraft achieved level flight. A steward named Silvio Depiante who later became a noted wine connoisseur reminisced that after cocktail service that featured extensive choices and a service of canapés,

  tables were laid for dinner with starched white linen, individual glass cruet sets, cutlery, butter on a china butter chip, wine and water glasses and a china side plate for bread. An antipasto service then followed of wonderful Parma ham with melon balls, sevruga caviar in an ice socle (plinth) with a torch under the ice to shine through dramatically, or alternatively lobster medallions with lemon and truffle.

  Specially selected Italian wines would be offered with each course and freshly baked bread from a basket. A choice of two soups would then be offered from the trolley in stainless steel tureens, one a Consommé with Sherry, the other a vegetable soup with croutons and garniture, served into white china soup bowls. A freshly tossed salad would then be presented from the trolley, with more wines, breads and water. The main course trolley would offer a fillet of beef carved to order with a typical Barolo wine sauce with other choices being Veal Piccata, Saltimbocca, or a fillet of fresh fish. Main courses would be accompanied by roast and boiled potatoes, semolina gnocchi, green beans and baby carrots. Desserts on the DC-8s would include the super Mimosa Torte, Cassata Ice Cream, Zuccotto and fresh fruit tarts, served after the cheese which could include up to five Italian cheeses such as Provolone, Bel Paese, Fontina, Taleggio and Parmesan which would be offered with fresh fruits.17

  The coach passengers dined in less luxury but still were offered antipasti, salad, and a cheese course before their choice of two meals and dessert.

  Other carriers did their best to match this type of service with their own ethnic touches; Lufthansa developed an ornamented beer keg on wheels that went up and down the aisle, which was appreciated by passengers but must have been dangerous if the aircraft entered turbulent air. An undated ad that shows what appears to be a crew member raising a glass with passengers must have appeared before 1968—until then, it was not illegal for crew to drink, only to be drunk.

  Every carrier had their gimmick to try to compete for the transatlantic trade. In less competitive markets the food was generally not of the same standard, and in the 1960s the largest closed market was for flights within the Soviet bloc. Russian aircraft were used, of course, and these continued the long tradition of being built bigger than anything produced elsewhere in the world. The TU-104 jet went into service in 1956 carrying fifty passengers, more than the Comet that was its only competition in that era, and the larger TU-114 went into service two years later. This aircraft could hold as many as 224 passengers and was the first jet built with the galleys in the hold and an elevator to deliver meals—an innovation that American aircraft makers copied later. The service on board was luxurious by Russian standards but accomplished by primitive means—as Aeroflot historian Polina Kurovskaya explained,

  Tea bags did not yet exist [inside Russia], and in order to avoid tea leaves getting into a glass, the flight attendants came up with brewing tea in cloth bags. A lot of canned food and food in glass containers was brought onboard: pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, apple juice (all in 3-liter jars); mineral water, lemonade in glass bottles. Sometimes the flight attendants had to open hundreds of bottles and cans per flight, breaking their nails and scratching their hands. Jars and bottles had to be brought back in Moscow for re-use (they were meticulously counted at the collecting point) so each plane hauled a lot of glass around the world. Black and red caviar was offered by spoons; the ration was 28 grams per passenger accompanied by vodka (which was not served on domestic flights). Most common hot meal was a chicken or a steak and a side dish: rice, peas, cucumber or tomato—the flight attendants had to put it on each plate.18

  Aeroflot had a near monopoly on flights to Russia from the West in the early 1960s but started arranging reciprocal landing rights with other carriers as the decade went on. The airline faced direct competition across the Atlantic for the first time in 1968 when Aeroflot and Pan Am both started flying nonstop from New York to Moscow. The management there obviously recognized that their airline had a bad reputation to work off, and for the first flight of journalists and VIPs they mounted a full-scale charm offensive. Stewardesses sewed buttons on shirts for passengers, and the captain made an offer that any baby born aboard an Aeroflot transatlantic flight would get a lifetime pass. (Heaven knows why they would want to encourage this situation.) Their effort got them what was then some of the best press coverage the world could offer, including a cover story in Life Magazine that began

  It took the Soviets only one flying day to modify an image which seasoned travelers had expected would keep Aeroflot jets half empty on flights across the Atlantic. The image was of indifferent or nonexistent service. For the inaugural trip to the U.S., the Russians picked a crack crew which included Meritorious Flier of the U.S.S.R. Boris Yegorov as captain and Hero of Socialist Labor Aleksandr Vitkovsty as copilot. They also picked the prettiest and most efficient Aeroflot stewardesses—“the sort,” one American reporter traveling on the plane wrote, “who have vanished from most U.S. airlines: smi
ling kids interested in passengers.” The stewardesses poured tea for the queasy, vodka for the venturesome. The button-sewing was quick, and there was caviar and pressed chicken.19

  The aircraft in this case was an Ilyushin 62 jet, the world’s largest jet until the introduction of the 747. The next generation of two-aisle aircraft were cheaper to operate per passenger, safer, carried more people, and added new challenges to catering.

  chapter 13

  Technology of Heat in Flight, Part Two

  The technologies of both heating and cooling were stimulated by the need to preserve and transport food during World War II, and the better systems found their way aboard aircraft almost immediately.

  Refrigerators designed by Frederick McKinley Jones of the Thermo-King company for refrigerated trucks were smaller, lighter, and cheaper than anything that came before, all of which led to the end of dry ice boxes aboard aircraft. The most important patent, which Jones filed in 1943, was for a portable refrigerator that could be built into a box with very little venting. This enabled the development of a wheeled cart that could be filled at a flight kitchen, plugged into an outlet in a truck during transport, and plugged in again in the aircraft, all without ever opening the refrigerator door and exposing the contents to heat.1 It was a revolution that improved hygiene and speed of loading and unloading, but the expensive units were another factor that priced small catering operations out of the market.

  The new oven technologies followed an odder path. Visionary inventor William Maxson had pioneered the first efficient convection oven for the Air Force’s frozen food experiments, and his company was steadily selling the units for military transports. By 1945 Maxson had turned his attention to the civilian market and had come up with the idea for the first multicompartment plate holding frozen food—the development that would later be reinvented as the TV dinner. Maxson called his invention the Sky Plate, and an article published in the July 1945 issue of Yank Magazine, a publication of the US Army, shows that he had things figured out well before his contemporaries: