The Culinary Cosmos and Other Einsteinian Extrapolations
Mar 14 '00
It is not the scientific importance of Einstein’s theory of relativity that excites me. Nor is it his reworking of Newtonian mechanics and physics that delights me. In fact, even Einstein’s annus mirabilis of 1905 is overshadowed by relativity’s most valuable insight, one that explores the most inexplicable phenomenon of contemporary society—airline food. As the cosmological gives way to the culinary, my take on Einstein’s theory of relativity is that, just as time is distorted by gravity, food is distorted by air travel. After all, Einstein’s theories of general relativity provoked some Big Bang theorists to proclaim the Universe ten billion years old, roughly equivalent to the age of the meat loaf I was served on an airplane last month.
It was my most recent flight, however, that convinced me of Einstein’s genius. After enduring the stunt car driver audition of my New York City cab driver, I arrived at the JFK airport. I waited in line to check in and was finally greeted by a smiling agent, one apparently unaware that it was early in the morning and that, until I had stuffed myself with a few Krispy Kreme donuts, a reciprocating gesture was physiologically impossible. She took a look at the ticket and, like any experienced traveler, I anticipated a problem. There is something about airports that make one expect the worst. Not only do I expect airports to be filled with faulty automated faucets, the kind with built in sensors that turn on when no one is around and shut off at the first sense of wet hands, but I have also learned to expect rampant confusion. There are certain things that have the effect of knocking off a dozen points from everyone’s IQ: the DMV, a Keanu Reeves movie, and the airport. Remarkably, the agent took my bags and quickly gave me my boarding pass.
On my way to the gate, I stopped by the gift shop. Surrounded by thousands of copies of John Grisham’s newest offering (I cringe at using the word novel) and a few dozen Statue of Liberty snowglobes, I picked out a few magazines, a newspaper, and a box of breath mints. I momentarily pondered why breath mints (or any other snack) purchase at the terminal cost more than a nice meal at an upscale restaurant and yet periodicals are sold at cover price, paid the cashier and went to sit near the gate.
A few minutes later, I boarded the plane and was struck with ravenous hunger. After popping a few breath mints like they were candy, I waited eagerly for the food service. The pilot began to make periodic announcements and I soon realized he was the type who feels the need to announce every sight below throughout the flight, apparently unaware that Pennsylvania’s fourteenth largest body of water visible on the plane’s right isn’t even interesting to native Pennsylvanian cartographers.
One of the stewardesses announced that a small snack would be served shortly and followed by lunch later in the flight, all of which meant I would have to sustain myself for the next few hours with a stale, imitation blueberry muffin and a glass of breath mint-flavored orange juice. The in-flight movie was set to start after our snack service, she announced. I flipped through the airline magazine in front of me for details. It was a rag of a publication, filled with half-finished crosswords, travel articles lifted from poor, encyclopedia-inspired high school book reports, and pages of mildly intriguing gadgets destined for late night infomercials and department store boxes with the words “as seen on t.v.”written all over. Although the magazine wasn’t as interesting as reading the multilingual barf bag in front of me (there’s something comforting about being able to recognize “if you experience discomfort” in five languages), I looked for the movie section.
By the time I located the title of the new Bond movie, the stewardesses were parading down the aisle, hitting elbows, stepping on feet, and selling $5 headsets without the foresight to bring change for a twenty. I started to think that maybe I was the only one who always wonders what ears those headphones have been in and what asses those thin, utterly inadequate pillows have been under. Content with my magazines and personal neuroses, I passed on the offer.
After reading a few articles, including an ominous one about the Pan Am crash years ago, I looked up at the screen. The movie was only thirty minutes old, but I recognized the plot immediately. I watched Pierce Brosnan escape inescapable dangers, followed by a scantily clad Denise Richards. Richards, despite being very attractive, has disturbingly thick eyebrows that make you wonder if she’s related to Pete Sampras or George “The Animal” Steele. My lack of a headset didn’t hamper my ability to follow the plot, roughly as complicated and as predictable as an episode of Full House, with Brosnan replacing John Stamos and the Olsen twins thankfully replaced by Richards and Sophie Marceau. Mercifully, the characters of Uncle Joey and Danny Tanner seem to have been cut out of the final script.
As uneventful as the movie was, it kept me from thinking about being hungry. In the movie, Brosnan somehow ends up in the water and I can’t help but thinking that it is nothing short of a miracle that he has 20/20 vision even without goggles. I also get the impression that not only does he have Spitz-like lungs, but he could live a normal life underwater, feasting on raw seafood and passing plankton in between leisurely jaunts to the nearest coral reef for a bit of R&R. I sensed this was almost the end of the movie, assuming Brosnan emerged from underwater at some point. I could smell the wafts and aromas of synthetic food about to make its way down the aisle.
The movie indeed ended (though I can’t recall the outcome), the food cart and the geriatric stewardess (didn’t they used to be attractive?) rumbled down the aisle, and I was presented with two options, chicken or beef. Hearing the vagueness of “beef”, I opted for the chicken. At first inspection, I thought the stewardess had given me the wrong entrée (and I use that word lightly). Chicken breasts aren’t supposed to be brown, I thought. Nonetheless, I was ready to eat. Before taking the utensils out of the plastic wrap, I listened to the passenger next to me complain that he was supposed to get a low-fat meal. The idea of a low-fat airline meal struck me as being as inexplicable and as incongruous as did the fact that the same portly passenger who insisted on a low fat meal and Diet Coke had already eaten at least four twinkies and handfuls of chocolate covered macadamia nuts.
Before eating, I surveyed the meal. Brownish-yellow chicken in a gooey orange sauce, wilted lettuce with a side of ranch dressing, a dinner roll, and a dry, coconut-topped piece of chocolate cake. There were also enough packets of salt and butter to make any cardiologist shudder. I probed the chicken-like substance with my fork and tried to cut it with my knife. This chicken isn’t worthy of real utensils, I thought to myself, with images of a school cafeteria and the ubiquitous spork running through my head. I finally cut a piece and put it in my mouth with the same willingness and facial response that a young child has when he takes cough medicine.
Truth be told, the “chicken” wasn’t that bad. It was a little rubbery but the gooey orange sauce was strong enough to mask any real taste. Calling it chicken, however, involved a little bit of poetic license, kind of like calling McDonald’s Filet of Fish a well-prepared salmon. Perhaps nomenclature is to blame; after all, what do you call a meaty substance about which can not be said, “It tastes like chicken.”? Nonetheless, my hunger forced me to keep eating, and I finished the chicken. The best thing I can say about the rest of the meal, including the wilted salad drowned in ranch dressing, is that, though it was a bit synthetic and unnatural tasting, it was edible. The drink cart finally reached me as soon as I was finishing the last bite of my cake and I asked for two glasses of water and a soda, all with the intention of flushing everything out of my system as soon as possible, a transfusion-like exercise of Keith Richards proportions.
After eating a meal with enough calories to sustain an impoverished African nation, I realized why Americans, and frequent travelers in particular, are overweight. I am convinced that there are enough preservatives and additives in these meals to prevent digestion for seven years, combining forces with all those pieces of bazooka gum that you inadvertently, or even intentionally, swallowed years ago to create an ever-expanding inner-inner stomach lining. (As Einstein noted, energy, food in this case, is converted into mass.) I spent the remaining hour of the flight perusing the barf bag, not out of literary curiosity this time but motivated, I think, by the combination of thousands of grams of fat and too much water.
My stomach ailments eventually subsided, perhaps because of the inner-inner stomach lining’s absorption of the newest calories and chemically altered food remnants. During the descent, when one of the stewardesses requested that passengers turn off all electronic devices, I forgot about the food completely. Instead, I pondered her request. Am I supposed to feel safe when, in the midst of an unprecedented technological revolution, CD players and Gameboys interfere with the plane’s landing equipment?
I can see the new breed of terrorist now, one from Nepal (why not?) who eschews anachronisms like bombs and guns, defiantly turning on his cellular phone, walkman, Palm Pilot, pocket blackjack, and electric toothbrush at the same time to bring down a Jumbo Jet of passengers who, in the waning moments of impending doom, are re-tasting the delights of airline meals, admonishing themselves for failing to watch the instructional video, and trying to remember if Nepal is a country or a variety of ice cream flavors. Needless to say, we are doomed—unless the unsuspecting terrorist samples the in-flight food, in which case he is doomed and we are free to book more flights and eat more airline food.
When we successfully landed, I stopped obsessing about the future of terrorism and again thought about Einstein. He could explain quantum physics, ponder the structure of the cosmos, and question the free choice of God. But, despite all his achievements and insights, what would he say about airline food? Perhaps he would merely quip, “It’s not that bad. In fact, it’s all relative.” Then again, he never had modern airline food.
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Member: Jeremy Delicino
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