Pinoy Food & Other Cuisine :: Food PhotoBlog and Events |

The effort, preparation process, and safety measures that go into creating the food we eat on airplanes is something we never think about. I know this never crossed my mind until I got a behind-the-scenes tour at Miascor Catering, a Philippine-based airline catering service that specializes in ethnic and halal cuisine. Halal is an Arabic term for the food that can and cannot be eaten according to Islam law, as well as the proper methods for slaughtering an animal. Some of the foods that cannot be eaten are pork, donkey meat, all carnivorous animals (except most fish), blood, and animals slaughtered in the name of anyone but Allah.

As I saw during the tour this afternoon, Miascor Catering takes halal, and other sanitary ways of preparing food, very seriously. We could not enter the premises until we put on hairnets, lab gowns, and washed our hands.

At Miascor, there are two different kitchens and refrigerators for the preparation of halal food and international food. This is to make sure that halal food retains its purity.

There are even separate washing areas for washing the pots and pans used in preparing halal and international food.

Miascor’s clients include Middle Eastern Airlines like Etihad, as well as other airlines. These trays of chicken curry are for a Hawaiian airlines flight.

I’m not sure what kind of kabab this is. Probably chicken, because it was from the halal kitchen.

Turkey covered in spices!

Fruit platters were being prepared on one side of the dessert kitchen.

On the other end were pastries being baked, and chocolate was being iced on wax paper to be frozen and used to garnish cake or ice cream on the plane.

The trays are loaded into the trolley at Miascor, which in turn is loaded onto the plane.

And on the wall are samples of cutlery for different airlines so the workers don’t get them mixed up.