A taste of yesteryear travel: Pilot’s fascinating book charts a century of BA meals, from mutton soup in the 1940s to caviar on Concorde (and it includes recipes for recreating them)

A deliciously captivating new book reveals how British Airways’ meals have evolved in over a century of flying, from mutton soup in the 1940s to caviar on Concorde.

Written by BA captain and keen amateur cook Al Bridger, Flavour of Flight – The Food and Drink of British Airways (Amberley Publishing) charts how the world of air travel has transformed beyond all recognition from its humble beginnings, revealing how with new planes came fancier catering facilities and ever-more flamboyant onboard food (including seat-side beef-carving in the 1960s).

Accompanied by a smorgasbord of vintage imagery, the book also dishes up over 50 authentic recipes drawn from over a century of inflight menus – each one tried and tested by Al himself.

Al reveals that information about what was served on flights in the 1920s is ‘sparse’, but what we do know is that food service was ‘limited’.

He writes: ‘No galley or ovens on the aircraft meant hot items were simply flasks of coffee, tea, Bovril and chocolate. However, early offerings were still quite extensive and surprisingly familiar to today’s customers, with the usual array of hot drinks and naturally an alcoholic bar selection plus food in the form of packed sandwiches and biscuits. The biscuits available would also be familiar, with the chocolate digestive being created by McVitie’s at this time.’

Food, glorious food: Guests being treated to a feast onboard a 1960s VC10

A very early Imperial Airways menu showing the drinks and sandwiches available on the flight to Paris – along with a mileage and time chart. Imperial Airways operated from 1924 to 1939

Between 1930 and 1939, there was a dramatic leap forward in standards, with the book revealing that ‘as early as 1933, British Airways’ predecessor Imperial Airways served a wonderful four-course Christmas meal to its customers with turkey, Christmas pudding and finally cheese, biscuits and coffee’.

In the 1940s, the first frozen meals took to the skies, ‘frozen from hot to keep their flavour and packed into foil trays, which were refrigerated and loaded at the last minute’.

A 1946 menu in the book lists mutton broth soup, roast pork with apple sauce and chocolate gateau for dessert.

In the 1950s, Al reveals, ‘culinary progress was made with more complex dishes such as lemon sole and shrimp served with various vegetables, which were now commonplace’. He adds: ‘Menu cards were bright, collectable and no longer individually typed but illustrated with vivid and attractive scenes evoking far-flung, exotic destinations.’

In the 1960s, dining became even more flamboyant.

Al writes: ‘While most food was still heated in foil trays, a real change was the serving of whole roast joints. These were presented on a trolley and carved individually to the customer’s taste, making this a moment of inflight theatre. Well-done beef was carved from the end, and the rare beef in the middle. This took real skill… with crew members given a carving set of fork, carving knife and sharpening steel. Amazing looking back now.’

The 1970s saw the birth of BA (from a merger between BOAC and BEA) and the introduction of Concorde, its flagship, with Al explaining: ‘Despite the tight space of the tiny cabin, Concorde had a galley fore and aft with a temporary area set up mid-cabin in flight to provide the food and service befitting the privileged few able to experience it.’

A menu instruction card for crew members in the book reveals that Concorde dishes included salmon, caviar and creme fraiche, plus fillet of beef marinated in red wine.

In the 1980s, the book notes, BA customers enjoyed the likes of Viennetta, chicken Kiev, Scotch salmon and mayonnaise sauce and grilled fillet of beef with a grilled tomato and mixed vegetables.

Passengers being served a meal on the C Class flying boat in the 1930s – ‘possibly roast chicken or York ham’

This image shows food and drinks being prepared on the C Class flying boat, with Al commenting that the ‘spacious galley allowed a real step up in the quality of the offerings onboard’

Above – the first-class experience onboard a 1950s Comet. Al remarks: ‘Whilst meals were still relatively primitive the service from the crew was exceptional’

LEFT: A ‘superb hand-typed menu card from the 1930s’. RIGHT: The ‘Chef’s Chat document’, which was ‘created to help crew understand the meals they were preparing and serving, how to present them and to give information about them’. This one is from Concorde, Al reveals, ‘and they are much unchanged today’

And BA turned to celebrity chefs for added culinary glamour, including Albert and Michel Roux.

At the end of the 1990s, Al notes, ‘Michel Roux introduced dishes onto the First Class menu – cassolette de langoustine aux tagliatelles and his famous tarte au citron’. He adds: ‘Both superb and extremely popular, they literally flew well.’

In the 1990s Michel Roux and his team, Al reveals, ‘trained British Airways First Class cabin crew in a la carte service, giving insights into the detail of fine dining service’.

He adds: ‘A new Club World menu was introduced with “well-being in the air”, healthier options such as fish curry with coconut rice being very popular.’

In the 2000s BA had a ‘total re-think of the inflight product’ and began offering an award-winning range of ‘contemporary options complemented by comfort food such as split pea and ham soup and a braised veal chop with root vegetables’.

Above – the ‘wonderful lower deck cocktail lounge of the Boeing Stratocruiser… a delightful place to take a drink’

This picture shows service training on Concorde in the 1970s. Al remarks: ‘Very colourful patterned seats and note the tiny windows to match the tiny galleys. This was passenger flight at the absolute forefront of technology’

The purpose-built galley on the Bristol Britannia. Al comments: ‘Just imagine preparing meals here while cruising across the Atlantic. Quite remarkable back in the early 1950s and still a real skill today’

Of the picture above, Al writes: ‘In 1987, British Airways merged with the hugely respected British Caledonian, gaining their wonderful service, new aircraft and a lot of tartan. As you can see, the First Class service was excellent’

Fast forward to the 2020s, and it’s celebrity chef Tom Kerridge who’s stirring things up.

Al writes: ‘The wonderful new Speedbird Café from Tom Kerridge gave options to pre-order food cooked from the heart. The new steak and ale pie suitably won the Best Onboard Snack at the Onboard Hospitality Awards, and, as part of a long history with British Airways, afternoon tea was back on the menu too.’

Al, a former Chief Pilot for British Airways, tells MailOnline Travel: ‘The journey of meals through British Airways’ century of flying has been remarkable. From early sandwiches to the incredible fine dining of today. 

‘Technology has played a huge part moving from the food carried onto the aircraft in baskets, through the invention of onboard ovens and advances in the science of food to the amazing meals skilfully prepared and served by our cabin crew colleagues today.

‘I can only marvel as the crews plate up and serve wonderful meals to our discerning customers at altitude over our entire worldwide network.’

Are there any dishes from the past he thinks BA should bring back?

Al remarks: ‘I’d love to see the “pineapple upside down cake” make a return, perfect 1990s food from a decade that I loved. I adore puddings of any type.’

Which BA recipes/dishes are among his favourite?

Al reveals: ‘There are a real variety of recipes in the book that are fun to make and hopefully taste terrific too, so hard to pick a favourite. I’d say the Roasted Cauliflower Risotto from the current Club World menu is my go-to meal. It’s so quick and simple to make and I love the flavour of the cauliflower mixed with Parmesan cheese. Lovely and filling.’

This picture shows the ‘incredible volume of catering and just some of the people involved in producing and delivering it for a 747’. It was taken ‘in front of the huge and beautiful aircraft at Heathrow’

LEFT: Al is a former Chief Pilot for British Airways. RIGHT: Flavour of Flight – The Food and Drink of British Airways by Al Bridger and published by Amberley Publishing is out on October 15, priced £16.99

Were there any less-than-appetising dishes from the past few decades that he decided to leave out of the book?

Al says: ‘British Airways has always been at the forefront of innovation to offer the best products to our customers. Sometimes this has produced some interesting and brave offerings, such as the 1970s Elizabethan service, which presented customers with food and drink reminiscent of four hundred years ago. “Real ale” and “posset” – a British hot drink with milk curdled with wine or ale – to complement “Breast of Chickin Christopher” followed by “Sherborne apple and orange tart”.

‘You have to question what they were thinking, but it was certainly very brave to experiment and definitely for an acquired taste. I decided to leave these out but maybe fun for another book.’

If Al could put himself in a first or business-class seat in any decade before the 2000s for a meal, which decade would it be?

Al tells MailOnline: ‘Advancements over the decades have been incredible, not only the food and drink but the whole flying experience and today’s modern cabins are stunning. That said, I would have loved to have travelled back in the 1960s. An iconic time of advancement with the jet age and the fabulous Boeing 747 bringing travel to many more people. Travelling over the dateline in a BOAC 707 on my way across the world enjoying a delicious, if messy, Fruit Mille Feuille would have been heaven.’

Flavour of Flight – The Food and Drink of British Airways by Al Bridger, with a foreword by British Airways CEO Sean Doyle and published by Amberley Publishing, is out on October 15, priced £16.99.