An Olympian meal

Earlier this year, I became involved in quite an exciting project. British Airways, being one of the sponsors for this year Olympics were running a completion for cooks both amateur and professional to design a three course meal that would be served on all their long haul flights between March and September 2012. Where do you start, especially as I heard that our taste buds are around 30% less active when at 35,000 feet above sea level.

The Olympics is such a fantastic event for this country and it got me thinking about how often we had actually hosted the Olympics? It turns out that this will only be our third time. First in 1908, secondly in 1948 (postponed from 1945 for obvious reasons) and now in 2012. As a foodie, the answer to my three course meal was there. Three dishes from those years!

My menu was taking shape. A starter of red mullet with a spicy salad for 2012 and representing the type of food we are eating today. A main from 1948 of pie, mash and liquor and popular then when rationing was in force and of course still popular now in the East End. Finally a posset, originally a British dessert of hot drink of milk curdled with wine or ale, often spiced.

BA also liked my idea and I was shortlisted from many thousands to cook against 12 other finalists. It gets worse! They explained that I would need to cook a three course meal completely from scratch in 90 minutes  in a professional kitchen on a strict budget of £15.00 which must also include the purchase of any basic store cupboard ingredients. I would be cooking against others and for Heston Blumenthal who would taste and judge the dishes. So no pressure. As you can imagine, going out a buying some basic ingredients can pretty much eat into that £15 budget before you even think about buying some meat or fish. However, I managed three very nice dishes in the time allotted and Heston seemed pleased.

I was not selected as the overall winner, but the whole cooking episode was filmed and will be shown on all BA long haul flights this year as part of the in-flight entertainment. I am sure it will be!

What would you suggest as an ideal in flight meal and why?