King And Queen

Sydneysider At Home Base

Food Fit For A King And Queen

No matter what kind of a mother you had, she never had to bake a quarter million meals a year; or cater to the tastes of guests who varied from Italian peasants to Asian royalty and took in a big proportion of the world’s travelling VIPs as well.

I about a half-acre of building out near Kingsford-Smith Airport Sydney, Qantas Empire Airways ;s just this—on behalf of itself, tish Overseas Airways Corpora -1 and Tasman Empire Airways L It’s typical of what goes on in ering for major airlines all over i world.

K clutch of international chefs and I kitchen staff spend their entire rking lives there baking, steaming, ing, snap-freezing and packaging irything from Fillet of Beef Peri irdine to strawberries and cream, [hat fluffy omelette, for instance, t you had for your breakfast seven les up, somewhere between Nadi, i, and Honolulu. You probably lught that the hostess whipped it and cooked it sometime when l were sleeping. Not a bit of it. was built to a secret formula, the f before, back in Sydney, part )ked to a golden brown, rolled o its serving position, chilled and :ked into a foil tray.

When breakfast came on your 707 eing Pacific service, the omelette d its foil tray were put into a small Hey oven like a miniature hot air mace, the cooking was completed, water that had been added to original mix evaporated and what B served to you not only looked d smelled like made-on-the-spot, tasted it.

Although no one flies just for the sals, meals break up the monotony flight; and, like air transportation elf, in-flight meals have changed.

In the days of DC3’s and Sunder nd flying-boats, you took longer to

get anywhere and did it on a diet of salad and ice cream.

As planes got bigger and classier and faster, aircraft designers also learned how to cook, and of the 16 items that can be on a first-class din ner menu, half of them now are hot dishes. [But jet-flight that clipped hours off flying-time also imposed some new problems; in short hops, as between Sydney and Noumea, New Caledonia and Sydney-Auckland, cabin staff have to work like beavers to get the meal served before the plane is al ready descending at its destination.] It’s all in the way you look at it: To you, a flight to the United States means bookings, fares, pass ports, inoculations and about 16 hours sitting in an aircraft. To Qantas’ catering staff, it probably means the organisation of one dinner and one breakfast and incidental refreshments.

Before jets it probably was one din ner, one breakfast, one luncheon and maybe a dinner again.

The Air Miracle

If you are the customer, most of the miracle of air meals seems to happen in a galley not much bigger than a decent-sized kitchen table. The real miracle, of course, happens back at base, that brain centre of meti culous planning at the edge of the airport in Sydney and other places like it.

Here thousands of chickens are bought each year; hundreds of tur keys; tons of peas and beans and brussel-sprouts; salad greens by the cartload; fruit by the bushel; filet

Some of the cooks who supply air travel lers with a quarter of a million meals a year. Left is Mr. Maurice Hofstein, Qantas aircraft catering supervisor, who is no mean chef himself, with two of his staff, chefs Peter Koch and J. Di Bello. steak by the hundredweight; endless lamb chops and cutlets; lobsters and oysters and sole which, placed tail to head, would reach three times round the jet runway.

Here in this place in giant cauld rons and batteries of ovens, it is baked and steamed and broiled; sauces are brewed by the bucket, and soup by the 10-gallon lot. The bakery is hard at work on its annual production of a million bread rolls.

So far, so good. What we have is a heap of food—but this doesn’t get it into the jet aircraft ready to serve to you somewhere between Darwin and Djakarta; or Perth and Cocos Island. The planning, the packing, the menus, constitute a department and a science in themselves.

A couple of days before a flight, some idea of requirements is known by the catering staff, but it is not until an hour before that the final number of passengers, the configura tion into tourist and first-class, is finally fixed.

Food for the tourist galley and first-class is packed—sufficient for each passenger and a dozen meals over; wine and cigarettes brought out of bond; containers of trays and eat ing utensils—plastic for tourist; china for first-class—are ready. Water, crackers, tea and coffee, special diets for babies and diabetics and business men with ulcers, all have been pro vided for, counted and ultimately signed out by the time you are aboard and have fastened your seat belts.

As part of the Sydney establish ment, there is a trainnig school for stewards and air-hostesses. They

work in a mock-up of a jet ga and fuselage, the stewards doim six-months’ course and the air 1 tesses a like number of weeks, stewards learn to prepare the f« arrange it; how to serve it and wines that go with it. The hoste learn to do what they have to decoratively.

Finally, they go out on short ti to places like Noumea or Nor Is., and by the time they are re for long flights are discommoded no one—neither the King of Ethia the President of the United Sts or you.

In August this year the establ ment was launched into the prep* tions for the visit to Australia New Zealand of the King and Qu of Thailand, from August 17 to S tember 12.

A Qantas Electra flew up to Bs kok to pick up the Royal party throughout the tour remained at disposal. Every item of food for King and Queen, their retinue ofl and the plane’s crew of 13 had t worked out weeks in advance, do to the last cheese biscuit; Singap* Bangkok, Wellington, Christchui Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, / laide and Perth had been adv’ just what items and stores t would be expected to supply.

Its total all added up to a m; operation in catering. In case are interested, as King Phumipi and Queen Sirikit flew between I gapore and Darwin on the night August 17, this was the menu 1 was placed in front of them: Hot and Cold Savouries Consomme Orge Perle Creme of Mushroom Fillet of Sole Marchand de Vim Supreme of Duckling au Cerise; Parsley Potatoes Buttered Garden I Cold Supreme of Chicken York Ham Ox Tongi; Salad in Season Vinaigrette Ss Pineapple Ice Cream Cheese Platter Desses Coffee Mint As they flew between Christchu. and Canberra on August 26, Pao Crayfish Mornay was on the lunchi menu; so was Roast Cushion of P c with Noisette Potatoes and Min Green Peas. Or they could hr had Supreme of Chicken Chaudfn and Salad in season, topping off w fruit salad with cream; cheese, o sert and coffee.

Between Perth and Singapore September 9, they will have a C tinental breakfast of fresh ora* juice; grape-fruit half; breakafst ro croissants and Toast Melba; man lade, jam, honey; fresh fruit; iced Ovaltine or coffee.

You, too, can have these Ro meals way up there in the sky you travel first-class. If you tourist there will be fewer frills..