Re: US airline food - ughh!


"Cyrus Afzali" <pnsmnyv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote...
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:48:07 GMT, "Gregory Morrow" wrote:
>
>>
>>Cyrus Afzali wrote:
>>
>>> AJC <ajc@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> >"Riaz" <riaz.oz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >>If Americans were half as demanding in the air as they are on the
>>> >>ground in a restaurant, US carriers would scramble to provide decent
>>> >>catering on board. So start demanding. The airlines will figure out a
>>> >>way to do it.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >I would say something completely different. Because Americans are so
>>> >undemanding of the quality of their food on the ground, their airlines
>>> >know they don't have to provide decent catering in the air.

Few areas of comment are as generally inaccurate as the sort of twaddle set
forth in the comments above. Like most of the citizenry of the developed
(or at least the not-hungry-when-bedding-down-at-night) world. Americans
range from undemanding to persnikkety beyond belief.


>>>
>>> I just love the blanket generalizations from the Europeans. Plenty of
>>> people in the U.S. eat very well, but just like everywhere else, the
>>> ability to eat well in terms of restaurants depends on your economic
>>> well-being. That's why in places like NYC, where people earn above
>>> average incomes, you'll see many, many fine dining places that will
>>> rival some of the best in the world.

A less nationally blanketing generalization, but again potentially faulty.
NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and dozens of other large cities have many fine
and even more acceptably interesting restaurants. Some, but not all, of
them are exhorbitantly expensive. A few remain largely undiscovered and
cheap. The same general rule holds across the country, although with few
exceptions, small cities and towns are not over-flowing with restaurants to
which I'd drive far for a meal.

The hamburger is an humble dish, yet at the righjt time and in the right
mood, well prepared and with appropriate ingredients (of which ketchup is
proscibed by divine fiat), it may be near incomparable. Less than 3 miles
from my new home is one of the world's finest tiny temples of hamburgerdom.
No crabmeat can match taht of the "Blue" which ranges from South of New
England to the Lower Gulf, the best though in declining numbers
traditionally from the Chesapeake. But whether it's cakes, Imperial or au
gratin (or even galatoires' damnably addictive stuffed eggplant), the best
crab is certainly not in NYC.

But the best and the worst of American food is in American homes. Of
course, there are millions of cooks unable to boil water without scorching
the pan, but for everything except steaks and barbecue (which require time,
the appropriate equipment/systems and constituents and the volume of
preparation not available in most homes) pride, practice and good recipes
adapted to the variety and quality of the ingredients available can elevate
home cooking to "Better-than-almost-any-restaurant" levels. I've been
fortunate to enjoy fine "Ameriucan" and many traditional ethnic meals even
in the small city in which I live (and a lot more of them if I can count
visits to homes in Houston, Galveston, San Antonio and the Metroplex. The
best "Persian" food I've ever eaten (and it was awfully good) was withn a
few blocks of my house, my wife's gynecologist's mother at the helm, the
best gumbo, andouille and wild duck with poached oysters and lump crabmeat
to garnish, in back yard outside Lutcher, LA. The weakest "leg" in US
cuisine remains the infrequent and unpredictably random availability of good
bread. Man may not live by bagutte alone, but if I can have scratch
biscuits on Saturday, I'll come close.
>>
>>There is a thread including the discussion of Dutch food on
>>rec.travel.europe - everyone pretty much agrees that it's some of the
>>worst
>>in Europe (and also FWIW that the Dutch are a fairly arrogant lot)

Other than menus and recipes imported from the East Indies/Indonesia, my
experiences with Dutch food are nothing to shout about. Awfully good
cheese, but that's no excuse for a cuisine that has to rise to achieve fied
eggs atop pancakes.

>
> I just returned from 8 days in Switzerland, and while I had good food
> while I was there, I certainly wouldn't say I had anything close to
> what I would characterize as the best meal I'd ever eaten.

I always thought the Swiss wasted too much time preparing and serving, often
unsuccessfully, the cuisine of the rest of Europe, yet never doing much to
develop and highlight their own. I'm not much for "fondue", but folks who
can cook potatoes like that don't need to spend a lot of time on other
cuisines. A good soup says more about a kitchen and a chef than all the
spun sugar and glossy visual appeal of a presentation dessert.

>
> What galls me about these debates is the attitude that the comparisons
> are even. There are HUGE disparities between Europe and the U.S. For
> one thing, Europeans are willing to tolerate unemployment rates that
> we've rarely seen in this country because it means the perpetuation of
> a system under which a fair number do decently and work less than
> their American counterparts. The U.S., on the other hand, decided long
> ago not to go the state industry route and favors lower taxation in
> exchange for more free-market competition. You just really can't
> compare the two.

I'm always interested when in Europe to see that the only "old" men who
appear to be working are affluent, captains of industry, business owners and
the like. Even "professionals" seem to retire earlier, unlike in the US. I
recall my father practcing medicine, with a reduced load and surgery less
frequenly and never alone, until the last months of his life at 80. Much of
the last few years was substantially teaching or "pro bono". It had far
less to do with money than constructive competition with the young guys, not
to run as fast, but still to run. At 66, I understand, although am lazy
enough to figure that by 75 or so, I will have cut down my hours.


>
> Even now, many of the telecom companies in Europe have at least
> partial state ownership, and the same can be said of transportation
> and other companies. Meanwhile, even our old "Ma Bell" AT&T monopoly
> that was broken up in the 1980s wasn't a government-owned company.
>
> I was taken aback that people in Switzerland -- at least in Zurich --
> still regularly smoke in open spaces in their offices. In the U.S.,
> that's now considered a fairly barbaric practice, especially if you
> come from a major city like New York where even the bars are smoke
> free. But I don't go around telling them how to live. If they want to
> breathe someone else's smoke and die, that's OK with me.

As a semi-reformed occasional smoker, 2 packs a day, 1962-2002, 1 pack a
week since, I'm with you. I resent not being able to smoke at a sidewalk
table, but can no longer imagine smoking in a really good restaurant or in
an office.

Two comments re: airline food.

It's been a long time since I might have looked forward to a meal as an
important contribution to economy class or domestic first class air travel.
Nor am I easily swayed to dine in airports, except for an early morning lift
to blood sugar and caffeine levels.
For a flight less than 3 hours, implying as much as another 3 hours going
and coming, why the Hell would I want to eat an unappetizing product of the
same sort of kitchens that feed schools and hospitals. For longer flights
or the 3 hour sort which start long after a regular meal, departing from
home, I'll make a sandwich or carry the "necessaries" to produce one, while
if on the road, I will have tried to locate a deli or other source for a
good "cold" sandwich.

Now, if it's international Business or First, expectation of decent meals
and service are built into the price, and poor food or service are
inexcusable. Even if you're an premium class upgrade or FF rewardee,
there's a fiscal premium built in to the fare paid. Last week, I paid $388
to fly from Waco to Dallas to Orlando and return at times convenient to me,
but interrupted by a bit of ice at DFW. I looked in my old travel ledger to
find that the same trip had cost me more (in more valuable dollars) in 1981.
I don't remember the meals on that trip, but if it was AA, odds are it was
lasagna. I'll skip the lasagna and save the money.

TMO


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Food and drink in European prehistory
    ... >>> indications of food consumed at various prehistoric ... >>> types of foods that were being eaten in prehistory ... >>> various bog bodies found in Europe. ... >> baking wheat was delayed. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Food Culture: The European Mesolithic.
    ... today tertiary sites for any food production. ... A2 B60 5.0% similar haps found in SE british, Czech ... A3 B7 4.9 Classic marker for arrivals from eastern europe into ... Polish 6.0% ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Food Culture: The European Mesolithic.
    ... today tertiary sites for any food production. ... we don't know when precisely the northern migration though the ... and the fact that Ireland had no large game animals. ... A3 B7 4.9 Classic marker for arrivals from eastern europe into ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Food and drink in European prehistory
    ... There is a wealth of archaeological evidence, from bones excavated in prehistoric middens, piles of fruit stones and sea shells, that give us concrete indications of food consumed at various prehistoric sites around Europe. ... we have pollen analysis from settlement sites and charred plant macrofossils. ... Wetland archaeology informs us in much more detail about not only the types of foods that were being eaten in prehistory but also, in some cases, their cooking techniques. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Hello from newbie
    ... You'll want to figure out how your body, the food you eat and this disease are getting along. ... Sounds like you're planning a move to take control of your diabetes... ... is how your body handles carbs. ... Two hours after meals under 120 ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
Loading