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One day in the life of… a flight kitchen
Gastronomic heights
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The Taj Flight Kitchen caters 11,000 airplane meals everyday. SHONALI MUTHALALY checks out what’s cooking
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PHOTOS: r. SHIVAJI RAO
THE KITCHEN STORY It bristles with oversized kadais, grills and a delightful bouquet of smells
First it’s steamy, then it’s frosty. One minute I’m wrapped in the aroma of peppery chicken Chettinad, the next minute in delicate fumes of cologne. There’s piped music playing, but to an assembly line of determinedly working
uniformed women.
Is it a futuristic laboratory? The set of some barrier breaking sci-fi movie? A Britney Spears video?
The Taj Flight kitchen, set just five minutes from the Chennai airport, (“So we can deliver a meal even ten minutes before a flight takes off” smiles the chef) is difficult to describe. Expensive high-tech machinery purrs contentedly besides a row of sizzling kuzhi panniyaram kadais. A revolving sink spraying water jets washes eggs, and high powered dishwashers sterilise crockery, but dal is still meticulously sifted by women, cleaning it the old-fashioned way.
It’s a cross between a busy hotel kitchen and a sterile laboratory. Except for the fact that it’s under unyielding pressure every single hour of every single day. For this kitchen caters 11,000 airplane meals everyday.
And each airline requires a different menu. Food has to be tailored depending on the time of the day it’s served, the flight destination and passenger profile. Every aircraft requires a variety of meals: different trays for Economy, Business and First class; special food for people with specific needs, such as diabetics, dieters, vegans and babies; and even three completely different meals for the Captain and First Officers so there’s never a risk of all three getting sick.
And then people complain about airline food!
Lionel Huggett, general manager of the Taj Madras Flight Kitchen Private Limited, rolls his eyes in his glass cabin, decorated with model planes and closed circuit televisions. As we watch people swabbing floors, carrying loaded trays, garnishing food and arranging cartons of provisions on the CCTVs, he says “Sometimes passengers make comments just for the heck of it.” A quick look through the operations confirms that he’s justifiably stung by random throwaway jokes about hard bread rolls. “We bring frequent flyers here, and once they learn what effort goes into making each tray, they appreciate the food more.”
Circumspectly compartmentalised, rigorously organised and spotlessly maintained, the unit is designed for optimum production and sanitation. Workers start their day with a shower, says Huggett, “We also insist they wash their hands every twenty minutes. They used to find it hilarious. Now they all do it.” After all, every batch of food that goes out caters to anything from 100 to 400 people. “We just cannot have people getting sick.”
Delicious and clean
Since they cater to so many major Airlines, twelve in all including Jet Airways, Air India, Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines and Emirates, they are expected to produce food that is as delicious as it is sterile.
“It all starts from the receiving centre, says N. Kannan, executive chef, as we walk though the room, piled high with fresh fruits and vegetables stacked in colour-coded boxes. The chain begins here, as suppliers line up with provisions: 1,000 litres of milk everyday, vegetables and fruits in tonnes, eggs in thousands… Processing comes next, where a line-up of cooks cut and dice vegetables in one room, chop meat in another and slice fish in the third. There’s even a room devoted to breaking eggs. Then comes the ‘halwai section,’ bustling with cooks wafting cardamom and saffron, lifting huge trays of fudgy kalakand.
The bakery section is welcoming, scented with warm bread and vanilla. As a machine deftly moulds a huge oval of dough into 30 plump buns, Huggett states that they can make 800 rolls in just about twenty minutes with their hefty rota ovens. We walk past trays piled with walnut cake, vegetable puffs, muffins and brownies, and stop at a man carefully cutting up dough for croissants. “If a roll is even ten grams more than it should be, it can make a huge difference in the cost to the airline,” says Huggett, explaining why they weigh everything almost obsessively.
I then find myself in a hot, bustling kitchen, bristling with oversized kadais, grills and a delightful bouquet of smells. “We do a lot more regional food now,” says Chef Kannan, pointing to idli trays and glowing tandoor ovens fragrant with kebab skewers. “People going to Cochin, for instance, want fish moilee or idiappam,” adds Huggett, “If it’s a flight to Madurai, then we serve sambar saadham.” Every airline gets an individual menu for each day of the week, which is changed periodically on consultation with the airline.
“Once the food is cooked, it’s blast-chilled at 5,” says Chef Kannan, opening a heavy door, letting out a wave of cold air. “The food is chilled at 5º C in 45 minutes, ensuring it’s safe, without losing any nutrition, colour or taste,” he continues, “Then the crew heats it in their aircraft oven.” This must be done carefully, if it’s in the oven for seven minutes instead of five, for instance, your once fluffy omelette might just taste like cardboard. “It’s all very scientific and systematic,” says Huggett.
Which could explain why, although the kitchen caters to 120 flights a day, there’s a calm blanketing the entire unit. At the final despatch area, food samples are laid out for inspection, and tightly rolled towels are chilled and sprinkled with cologne for passengers. The stacked trolleys trundle into uploaders, specially constructed vehicles, which then take a special route to the tarmac, where they’re loaded into the aeroplane.
And twenty minutes later, you’re buttering a fresh croissant, 32,000 feet above sea level.
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