A flight back into the past

I can hardly believe the food I have been served for dinner tonight on Air Tahiti Nui from Auckland to Papeete. It has taken me back to 1970s rural Tasmania. Of the two choices, I chose the chicken dinner.  There were small lumps and by texture it was clear they were chicken. But it was the orange neon florescence of the textureless sauce that was stunning. Almost the orange colour that will be seen in fashionable clothes this coming summer. And not the reddish tone one sees in the bain maries of sweet and sour dishes in lunchtime takeaways. The breadroll had collapsed on itself. The desert was Frangipani Apricot cake and this was where even Mrs Marjorie Bligh, cook extraordinaire from Tassie's north west coast, would have been left speechless. I remember those not quite sponge cakes with jam sandwiched between that were sold to people who couldn't cook or didn't cook at the end of the 1970s. In this day and age of style, freshness and healthiness being presented in food on all the airlines that I have travelled in recent years, I am astounded that the trend has not reached French Polynesia's national airline. An amazing disappointment. But perhaps a reality check of what is to come. But it is all part of ongoing education. Wonderful that that is.