What Was Your Worst Airline Meal?
This week, Continental Airlines announced that, starting this fall, it will be the last major airline to give up free meals for coach, marking the end of an era that began when people dressed up to take a flight and airline meals were served on china. (Do you remember those days? I sure don't. But I do remember when you could smoke on flights. Anyway ....)
What will Continental's grand sendoff meal be? No idea, but I'm guessing it'll involve those styrofoam "dinner rolls," an entree that smells like burnt rubber, and that watery coffee that always ends up on your lap whenever someone walks to the bathroom.
But since it is an occasion for nostalgia, let's reminisce a little. What was your worst airline meal? Did you actually have any good ones? (And if so, who was it?)
I'll share my worst airline-food experience.
I was flying a Pakistani airline in the mid-90s from Frankfurt to New York City. There was a very rotund (and floridly bad-tempered) German man in front of me with his seat reclined all the way back; there were about a dozen little screaming Pakistani kids running up and down the aisles like maniacs without any adult supervision; the hostesses were all surly, mean, and seemed ticked off that I spoke English to them and didn't know any Urdu; and the captain had just gone on the P.A. system and threatened beheadings for anyone caught with drugs. (I'm not kidding about the last part.)
And then there was the food.
Let me be clear: I love curry. I grew up on curry. One of my favorite meals as a kid was the curry that my Lahore-born godfather made for me.
But this? It was a greasy, brown mess that even the most hardened midnight-shift-working New York cabbie would balk at. It smelled like a traffic accident. The "meat" was a poo-sized piece of gristle with a bone sticking out of it, all tough fat and wiry sinew. The part of the animal it came from ... even the animal it came from ... was anybody's call. There were bits of mushy greyish matter floating among the reddish-brown grease splotches in the sauce that was apparently once some form of vegetable. The chapatis resembled those oil-soaked cardboard coasters from the '70s that your dad can't give up for some unfathomable reason. There was, naturally, no beverage, and there was barely a napkin.
I tried a bit of the sauce, gagged a little, realized I simply didn't have the strength required to pry the gristle from the bone, and took a bite of the chapati only to have the grease that my teeth squeezed out dribble down my chin. I gave up and prayed that a hostess would come by soon, take the meal away from me, and offer me a soda.
And then the German started to vomit.
Anyway, that was easily my worst airline-food experience. What was yours?
By Michael Y. Park
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