No more cow meat in ‘cattle class’.
Posted by Big John on May 9, 2008
Over the years I’ve eaten hundreds of airline meals; some bloody awful and some pretty good, although the good ones came mostly when travelling ‘business class’ when someone else was paying for the ticket.
I remember on one occasion when I sat looking at a tray containing a dried up pasta dish, a small hard roll, some sort of pink dessert, two crackers and a morsel of sweaty cheese, when the lady beside me suddenly said … “You should request a Kosher meal”, … “But I’m not Jewish”, I replied … “Neither am I” said the lady, and I must say the contents of her tray looked a lot more appetizing than mine.
I was reminded of that mid-air meal when I read today that British Airways is to stop serving beef in economy-class and instead offer a fish or chicken dish. BA claim that the new meals are “healthier, lighter and without religious prohibitions for all passengers”. In other words … we don’t want any pissed-off Hindus travelling on our aircraft and we carry an awful lot of them.
Whilst the Hindu Council in this country … “welcomes the descision” … they also say that … “Hindus are tolerant of the beliefs of others and do not expect everyone to stop eating a food because they do not eat it.”
It would seem that once again someone has got their knickers in a twist about offending one of our religious minorities, when obviously the ‘minority’ concerned is not really bothered.
So how many passengers will be ‘bothered’ that BA will now only serve beef to the people sitting in the ‘posh’ seats behind the curtain ? Not many I expect, as most of them didn’t know what they were eating in the first place, and it certainly never tasted like …
… the ‘Roast Beef of Old England’.
May 10, 2008 at 7:00 am
I think it’s less about avoiding offence to religious groups than about saving money by giving the same meal to everyone.
This was the reasoning behind the decision of a school to use only halal meat in school lunches as it saved the nuisance (and expense) of providing halal meat for Muslims and “ordinary” meat for the rest. There was the predictable outcry though for the wrong reason. (People were complaining about their children being forced to eat “Muslim” meat when they should have been complaining about the cruelty to animals with which this meat is produced.)
Religious sensibilities are one thing but they are always trumped by the demands of the accountants.
All this nonsense provides me with one more reason to be glad I’m a vegetarian.
May 10, 2008 at 11:12 am
Reminds me of the time I was flying overseas with a friend and we both came to the conclusion that the milk we’d just put in our coffees was off. “This milk is off,” we complained to the steward. “I’m sorry, sir,” she replied, “that is the mayonnaise.”
May 10, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Ugh, airline food ! Even in the “good old days” it was pretty horrible stuff. I’m always a little wary of nuked food.