Source: oldschoolads.com
Last week we came across an eye-catching magazine ad from 1976 that shows the 18 different special meals available on United Airlines back then.
We found the ad on the @OldSchoolAds Twitter pages, which is worth taking a scroll through! John Aiello who runs the page told us that the ad came from Time Magazine, and likely appeared in several other magazines in the same year.
We checked with United, and a spokesperson told us that while it had records of the ad running, he couldn’t find anyone to answer my burning question:
What in the world was included in the “Soul” meal?
I’m from The South and grew up eating soul food… but never had it on a plane so I’m wondering if any readers who were flying around back then ever had a soul food meal? And if so, what was it? It’s hard to tell due to the graininess of the photo, but I think I see red beans and corn bread…or yams? Maybe fried chicken?
If you are not familiar with soul food, here’s how Wikipedia describes it: Soul food is a variety of cuisine that originated in African-American culture. It is closely related to the cuisine of the Southern United States. The term may have originated in the mid-1960s, when soul was a common word used to describe African-American culture (for example, soul music).
And also, check out the “Oriental” option– that word of course has gone out of fashion since 1976, and would now likely be called the “Asian” option. But I wonder if it was really served with chop sticks as seen in this ad? And don’t miss the “hot dog type kid food” option.
And since we are talking about food options on United, don’t forget that starting on Monday, free snacks come back to United flights. On flights departing before 9:45 a.m. you’ll get a morning stroopwafel – a Dutch, caramel-filled waffle with your coffee or tea. For flights later in the day, you’ll get packaged savory snacks, such as an “Asian-style snack mix of rice crackers, sesame sticks and wasabi peas or a zesty-ranch mix of mini pretzel sticks, Cajun corn sticks and ranch soy nuts.”
Free snacks like this stroopwafel are back on United starting in February (Image: United)
Do you order special meals when flying? If so, what do you choose, and why? Please leave your comments below.
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Hey Dan,
Air France already provides an up-front selection in Economy for a price:
http://www.airfrance.us/US/en/common/resainfovol/achat/menu_a_la_carte.htm
Though, their regular meals (economy & business) aren’t too bad. They’re still airplane food, but a notch better than some US airlines.
Wow, I didn’t realize “Gluten-free” was a thing since back in the day. I feel like gluten-free marketing has exploded in just the past few years.
In this age of cheap computer power and just-in-time scheduling, I’m really surprised that airline food is stuck in the 1950s, even with this panoply of succulence that you describe here. I bet within five years some of the upscale airlines (probably starting with the Middle Eastern and Asian premium airlines) will allow you to go to a web page up to 24 hours before a flight and pick exactly what you want to eat from a menu of hundreds of things.
You might have to pay for it, but who cares? I’m tired of requesting vegetarian meals and being forced to eat vegan fare that I have to gag down, or ovo-lacto crap that could have come from my high school cafeteria. I flew United business a lot a few years ago and could hardly eat some the special meals they served me… and I have very low standards when it comes to food. Once I accidentally ate dog food that I found on my mom’s kitchen counter and didn’t think it was so bad. But I couldn’t eat United’s lasagna, it was like a Frisbee covered in tomato sauce.
And as I may have mentioned before, I learned a new trick for arriving relaxed and refreshed after a long flight: skip all food and drink only water. It makes the flight boring, but wow you arrive feeling fantastic.
United still has the “Bland” options. It’s just that the other options have all vanished, at least domestically.
I recall eating lobster at 30,000 feet on a domestic flight from San Francisco to Dallas back in the early 1970’s. Now it’s peanuts.
I like that the ‘low cholesterol’ points to a strip of bacon