London Stansted is hoping that a new menu filled with flavours that are enhanced at altitude will pack a punch for your tastebuds.
Signature Seafood Club sandwich. Image by Stansted
Airline food tastes worse than it’s on-the-ground counterpart and it’s not because catering staff are serving up bland and unappetising food. Essentially, when you board a flight you leave your normal sense of taste on the ground. Flying manipulates our taste-buds and sense of smell in a myriad of ways, namely numbing our sense of salt and sweet. Before you write airline food off, London Stansted is doing something to fix that. It’s teamed up with luxury food outlet, Not Always Caviar, to create a sandwich with flavours that are actually enhanced at altitude.
Based on scientific food research into the body’s reduced ability to perceive flavours when flying, the new sandwich will include umami-rich ingredients. Umami, the so-called fifth taste after sweet, sour, salty and bitter – is at the core of the sandwich’s inception, also featuring as a special blended umami seasoning.
Professor Barry C Smith tests Stansted’s new sandwich. Image by Stansted
“Science shows that the combination of dry air and low-pressure during flights reduces our sensitivity to food aromas,” said Professor Barry C Smith, Director of the Centre of the Study of the Senses at the University of London, who helped Stansted develop the snack. “Additionally, the sound of white noise at 80 decibels or above has an impact on the brain’s ability to perceive sweet, salt and sour from the tongue – reducing its intensity by about 10-15%. In an aircraft cabin you are subjected to white noise of around 89 decibels.”
By itself umami isn’t that palatable but it greatly enhances other flavours and boosts other basic tastes like salt, sweet and sour. It’s also immune to the effects of white noise on our perception of taste.
Salt Beef Deli sandwich. Image by Stansted
The Sky High Sandwich will be sold exclusively at the Not Always Caviar cafe in London Stansted airport, available as a ‘signature seafood club with optional caviar sauce or a salt beef deli sandwich. Both sandwiches will include a special umami blend spice ingredient, to give the sandwiches a kick.
In recent years, airlines such as Lufthansa, Monarch and Singapore Airlines have introduced umami-rich items to their in-flight menus to make food options more enjoyable.
The post A key ingredient makes these sandwiches taste better on flights appeared first on Lonely Planet Travel News.