Everything You Wanted To Know About Airplane Food (But Were Afraid To Ask)

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Dining at 35,000 feet certainly isn’t what it used to be, but it isn’t what it could be, either.

Starting with: Does airplane food always taste mediocre? (Thankfully, no!)

Eating on a plane wasn't always joyless. We think. It feels so long ago that hot meals were a guarantee... Now, mid-air dining poses one of the greatest challenges between two wings, with passengers wondering: What should I order? Should I even bother to order? Should I just bring food on the plane? What should I bring? And why does everything taste so weird? Luckily, we have answers to everything.

WHY AIRPLANE FOOD TASTE DIFFERENT

To start: Cabin humidity is typically low on a plane—between 10 and 20 percent—which can dry out your nose and affect your sense of smell. Recycled air combined with air-conditioning makes food dry up quickly, which explains why most meals go heavy on the sauce. And a 2015 study by the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab found that plane vibrations stimulate a nerve in the middle ear, which messed with the participants’ perceptions of taste: Savory flavors were heightened, and sweet flavors were, well, less sweet. That the scales tipped toward savory is not that surprising: Umami, the fifth taste sense, has previously shown to be an airline chef's secret weapon.

Robin Dando, Ph.D., one of the authors of the study, told Condé Nast Traveler that tasting is much more than putting food in your mouth: “When we perceive a flavor, we're not just perceiving the ingredients. We're getting inputs from all of our senses, which put together an image of the flavor as a whole in our brain,” says Dando. “Our study showed the importance of the auditory environment in how we enjoy our foods—in loud noise environments, for example, all of the hard work done by a chef to balance complex flavors is undone.”

Down the road, Dando says airline chefs could try to combat the imbalance by tasting their food while wearing headphones and playing the same aircraft noise. Sounds like fun, right? Bet they'll love that. Until then, switch on those noise-canceling headphones, stay hydrated, and adhere to the "wetter is better" mantra for onboard eating.

THERE'S A SECRET TO ORDERING MEALS...

The longer the meals sit on the food cart, the less “fresh” and warm they’ll be—no amount of warming or speed rolling down the aisles can help. If you’re content to go the onboard-meal route, add an extra five minutes to your booking and request an special meal option: think vegetarian, low-fat, or even kosher. This ensures you’ll get your meal delivered before others, and makes it more likely that it'll be fresh(er).

...AND THERE'S AIRPLANE FOOD YOU'LL (ACTUALLY) WANT TO TRY

Dining 35,000 feet in the air certainly isn’t what it used to be, but it isn’t what it could be, either. When will they start delivering Shake Shack on board? Dreams aside, certain airline meals are not only palatable, they’re actually—dare we say it?—good. From afternoon tea in Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class to Filipino beef kare-kare (oxtail stew with tripe and pork leg simmered in a cashew sauce with asparagus, roasted potatoes, and carrots) in Hawaiian Airlines' First Class, you’ll be flying high in more ways than one. But for those of us unable to spring for first or business-class fares, fear not: Whether it’s brisket chili from three-time James Beard–winning chef Tom Douglas on Alaska Airlines, Viennese schnitzel on Austrian Airlines, or a chicken Cobb salad on American Airlines, there are great economy options out there, too.

EAT THIS, NOT THAT

If you want to skip onboard ordering altogether, bring on foods that will retain their flavor, taste good at room temperature, and stand up to the harsh, dry air conditions. For main meals, try lentils, grains tossed in vinaigrette (barley, farro, and rice will all maintain their firmness), or pasta with olive oil and cheese. As ever, look for foods that rank high in umami and will actually be enhanced by that pesky airline hum: carrots, Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, and tomatoes are all up there. No wonder those in-flight Bloody Marys taste so good.

Written by Katherine LaGrave

 www.cntraveler.com