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If our business is anything like others around the world, catering requests change with the seasons. As we shed those jackets and long sleeves for lighter weight clothes, we also tend to request lighter food for our passengers and flight crews. There is a push to eat healthier, to shed a bit of weight to get ready for the summer days at the pool and outdoors. Out with the heavy meals, out with loads of carbs and hearty stews that warmed us through the winter, and in with salads and smaller portions.
Molecular gastronomy is playing a role in food served on board as well. My season of spring here in the US is not the same as others around the globe which makes different goods available at slightly different times. I found the charts below that break foods into seasons and also found an app for the iphone for you to use as you travel the globe and are curious as to what is in season. There is a small fee for the app, but it is totally cool. It is called “seasons“. The description says it 'Features' . . .
In the United States and Canada we see artichokes, asparagus, avocados ( the tree outside is covered with growing avocado that I will be able to pick and what I can’t use right now, can be frozen), broccoli, broccolini, fava beans, kale, peas, potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, sunchokes, turnips, and lettuces. Fruits include blood oranges, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, and strawberries. Oh, how I love to see strawberry season roll around . . . yum, yum, yum. I absolutely love going to the fields and picking my own berries that are warm and plump after being in the sun and drip juice down your chin as you bite into them. I have strawberry appetizers, add them in salads, entrees, soup and desserts from my strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese icing to sweet biscuit strawberry shortcake to breakfast smoothies. There is one field I like the most as they don’t mind if you eat berries as you pick. I think I eat as many as I pick! And I wonder why I am not shedding weight in the spring - but gaining? The farmers’ market selections from local growers make the seasonal changes exciting. Baby lamb is available, so tender and succulent. Salmon, available year round is extra plentiful now. and the flavor is over the top as it moves around your mouth. Lobster’s season is approaching, crab, crayfish (a true delicacy of New Orleans area), mussels and mackerel are all heading into season. But in the United Kingdom broccoli, jersey royal new potatoes, lettuce salad leaves, purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, rocket, samphire, spinach, spring onions, watercress, wild nettles, kiwi fruit, rhubarb to name a few are at their peak in the spring. Again lamb is young with the mild flavors and tenderness to impress you, but the UK has wood pigeons heading into season as well. Cockles, crab, langoustine, lobster, plaice, prawns, red mullet, salmon, sea trout, shrimp, whitebait will be pulled from the waters surrounding the island while in their season for freshness. Herbs grow like crazy this time of the year with chives, dill and sorrel leading the way. Imagine the possibilities your catering source has to offer. With all this amazing produce, meats and fish spring brings, you will see vibrant exciting colors used in most beautiful ways in every course of the meal. From snap peas to radishes to artichokes, I thought I would share some of the newer presentation ideas for tossing together these seasonal foods. Watch for this addition to menus; zucchini spaghetti as the new spiral cutter takes a zucchini squash, carrot, potato, and other vegetables (like cucumbers) into long ribbons that resemble pasta - but no carbs. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical at first, but I have found it delicious! And fun to eat as I twirl it just like spaghetti. It does not need to be cooked and can be eaten raw as a salad. I would suggest that if ordering this for the aircraft, you request it seasoned only, as it will cook in the very short time it would have been reheated. If reheated from a cooked state, it will become very limp. Most any vegetable will do. Carrots with ginger, lime and peanuts; cucumber with tomatoes with basil and mint vinaigrette, zucchini and yellow summer squash combined and lightly sautéed with parmesan and sun dried tomatoes. And they travel well. For a fresh toss when eating them raw, request the salad components in a zipper bag, dressing on the side and final garnish to sprinkle after the noodles are plated . . . or order this as a box lunch. Dressing will wilt the noodles so always remember to order on the side. Whether cut into spaghetti . . .
Or into ribbons in the likeness of pappardelle pasta
Notice the use of color. The creation of art in the presentation, more monochromatic color schemes, and the use of sauces and dressing as part of the design. Also notice that chefs are adding new foods with which we are not as familiar to add that pop of color and interest. Colorful ingredients are pureed for sauces to add color. Many of the new style presentations will require someone in the galley to finish them in this new style. Request your catering source to provide sauces in squeeze bottles, if needed to finish your work of art. Be sure to ask your catering source what kind of assembly will be required, what the packaging will be like, and how long it will take to assemble. You don’t want to have more than five plating steps . . . especially if you have a full flight! No longer are sauces and dressing used to cover up the food, but, to highlight a burst of color, style and flavor into the design. Appetizer, starter and salad ideas . . .
Soups . . . from spring pea soup with basil oil and cheese to asparagus soup with wild garlic blossoms to garnish
Entrees . . .
And desserts . . .
Celebrate Spring by selecting new and different foods your catering source has found from the local farmers market! We live in a colorful artistic world and now our food reflects that even more than ever before.
Let me introduce myself . . . My name is Paula Kraft and I am founder and President of Tastefully Yours Catering, an aviation specific caterer, located in Atlanta, Georgia for over 35 years.
Currently I am an active member of the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee Advisory Board and the NBAA International Flight Attendant Committee, Women in Corporate Aviation, Women in Aviation International, National Association of Catering Executives, International Flight Catering Association, the International Food Service Association and the International Caterer’s Association. I have coordinated training programs and clinics for NBAA, EBAA and BA-Meetup conference attendees for over 10 years, created mentoring programs for caterers and flight attendants to broaden their aviation culinary skills, and to assist them in adapting to the unique challenges and constraints found in catering for general aviation. I recognize the need for training and have worked closely with flight departments, flight crews, schedulers and customer service reps at the FBOs to ensure that catering specific training provides information and skills necessary to reduce risk while assisting them in their job duties that include safe food handling, catering security, accurate transmission of food orders, and safe food production, packaging and delivery. I fell into aviation catering quite by accident. I was the in-house caterer and bakery supplier for Macy’s department stores in Atlanta when catering was ordered for a Macy’s customer which was soon to change my life. After the client enjoyed the catering provided, I was summoned to the client’s corporate office to provide several of the items delivered through Macy’s to the executive dining room. Within a week, I was providing food for the flight department and my first order was for the President of a foreign country (as I was too be told soon after). So, here I am, some 35 years later, still loving every minute of every day in aviation catering.
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