Excuse me, are you Jewish? The ethics of ordering a special meal on plane

by Iva Skoch on

I frequently order special meals on planes. Why, you ask? They are usually much better than the standard in-flight fare you get.

I am neither a vegetarian nor a practicing Jew, yet I order vegetarian, kosher, low-sodium, or any other alternative I get, rather than ordering the standard salt-packed meal. I never thought twice about it.

My sister’s recent experience changed that.

For her recent Czech Air flight from Prague to New York, my sister ordered a kosher meal. When distributing meals, the flight attendant came over and asked her:
“Excuse me, did you order a kosher meal?”
“Yes.”
“Are you Jewish?” the attendant asked.
“Why do you ask?” she replied.
“Well random people sometimes order kosher out of curiosity and then they don’t like it.”
Sigh.

I don’t know about you, but this strikes me as incredibly rude. Asking a customer what religion they are in front of a plane load of people? I don’t think so.

It got me thinking though. Do airlines frown upon people ordering special meals just out of curiosity? Is it ethical to order kosher even if you are not Jewish? I, personally, don’t think so. If it’s offered, it’s fair game.

Perhaps Heather, Gadling’s own galley expert, could help us out here?

From the New Europe: Urinating and vomiting in the streets of Prague no longer cool

by Iva Skoch on

Watch out, binge drinkers and pigeon-feeders! Offences such as feeding pigeons, spitting, urinating and vomiting in the streets will soon be punishable in Prague.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Prague is trying to lure wealthy tourists. It’s sick of budget travelers. That’s not exactly how the government officials put it, but I can read between the lines. They want to accomplish this not only by creating commercials that advertise Prague as “the city with beautiful women. Come here and check them out,” but it is now trying to figure out how those solvent tourists are going to feel about Prague when they step into dog crap the minute they get out of a cab. And probably get ripped off by the taxi driver at the same time.

Well, you know, those folks don’t really see that as adventure travel.

To help things out, Prague City Hall has come up with a new decree that will come into effect this July. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, people in Prague will be fined CZK1000 ($70) for throwing away cigarette butts, chewing gum, food scraps and other waste, feeding pigeons, failing to remove their dogs’ excrements, spitting, urinating and vomiting in the streets.

A lot of people consider Prague a dirty city. Those people include me. And I am from here and like it here. However, I honestly wouldn’t mind if people picked up after their dogs every time.

The thing is, Prague will never be as clean as Singapore. It’s, in essence, a dark, sinister, messy kind of place. How clean is too clean for deal old Praha?

Upgraded to cockpit. That’s a new one.

by Iva Skoch on

What are the odds of being upgraded to cockpit, if a flight is overbooked? Not great, but I will keep hoping.

I read with envy the NY Times column of Greg Cohen, a corporate frequent flier, who got “upgraded” from business class to the cockpit jumpseat on a flight from Stockholm to Prague with Czech Air because it was overbooked.

He doesn’t mention when this occurred but something tells me it was a long, long time ago, before cockpits were supposed to be as secure as bank safe deposit rooms. It just couldn’t happen nowadays, could it?

I fly Czech Air all the time and this never happens to me. I even fly business class with Czech Air because their frequent flier program, OK Plus, allows for easy upgrades. But cockpit? Nobody has ever asked me to sit next to the pilot. How cool would that be? I would gladly skip the warm nuts and sparkling wine of business class for the view out of a cockpit.

Croatia bans tourists from arriving with their own food; Czechs are outraged

by Jeffrey White on

We’ve all heard of movie theaters banning food not bought on premises, and certainly it’s a no-brainer that you just can’t buy take-away food somewhere and go sit in a restaurant and eat it.

But this is the first time I’ve heard of a country banning food not purchased in its own borders.

Croatia has taken the unusual step, in Europe at least, of forbidding tourists from bringing their own food when they come to holiday on the coast this summer. The ban seems focused on meat and dairy products, and is response primarily to Czech tourists who, in droves every summer, pack up their family cars with yogurt, margarine, fried meat, beer, you name it and head down to places like Hvar and Dubrovnik. They hardly spend a dime on food during a week or two of holidays.

Naturally, Czechs are up in arms about this.

“800,000 Czech citizens visit Croatia every year. Two-thirds of them – around 500,000 Czechs – spend their vacation in Croatia in apartments with kitchens where they cook. So this new rule very drastically affects most Czech citizens this year. Croatia is the number one destination for Czech people, and about 25 percent of all Czech vacations are spent in Croatia,” Tomio Okamura, spokesman of the Czech Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agents, tells Radio Prague.

Why wouldn’t Czechs just suck it up and maybe go out for a meal or two, or, if they want to cook, buy the food locally? Okamura has his theories: “It’s not only a problem of price, it’s also a problem of taste. Because Czechs like the taste of Czech sausages, Czech yogurt and so on – a lot of them prefer their lovely taste. And of course they want also to save money.”

Maybe Gadling’s resident Czech, Iva, should chime in on this: Will her countrymen cancel their Croatian holiday plans because of this, or will they, in the words of Radio Prague’s great headline, play hide the salami?

From the New Europe: Eating bugs and worms because you can afford it

by Iva Skoch on

The luxury restaurant market in the Czech Republic is apparently looking for new, creative ways to cater to their clients and be “distinguishable from others.”

The strategy? Putting insects as an item on luxury restaurants menus, the Prague Daily Monitor reports. The Brno restaurant manager Martin Kobylka says: “We want to shock people. A lobster, a crab or a crawfish are offered everywhere, but a cricket in caramel or a chocolate cake with a cockroach are unavailable in this country for now.” (I love that the name Kobylka actually means grasshopper in Czech. It is about the coolest name for a guy who wants to market mainstream insect-eating.)

Chocolate cake with a cockroach sounds like a delightful way to end a first date. Especially if you are really not that into her.