How they REALLY make your airline food: Why spicy menus are best to eat at 30,000 feet, what the cabin crew do with the leftovers and why the pilots NEVER eat the same meal revealed

Beige, bland, unidentifiable: airplane food generally does not enjoy the highest culinary reputation.

But I'm one of those people who, on a long-haul flight, eagerly await the moment when I open the silver foil to discover what's in store for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

What always interests me is how airplane food is actually made. And what goes into producing thousands of meals that are ready to be heated and served at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

To find out, I spend the day with British Airways at the sprawling 50,000-square-foot catering facility two miles from Gatwick Airport. It is run by Newrest Catering, whose 350 staff produce 4,500 meals a day.

The scale of the 24-hour operation is staggering – and cleanliness is critical. I start by putting on white chef's clothes, black boots with steel caps, a striped apron, hairnet, face mask – and go to the industrial metal hand wash basins.

I assist the team in putting together the British Airways Christmas menu, which includes a traditional turkey roast with all the trimmings. Even under my face mask, the festive aromas are unmistakable as the chefs chop, peel, stir and swirl massive quantities of food.

First up are the roasted parsnips, which I drizzle with honey using a slotted spoon the size of a spade before moving on to the cranberry compote station. More than 50 kg of Brussels sprouts bubble away next to me in a giant silver vessel as I mix bright red berries with sugar, cinnamon sticks and nutmeg.

Every few minutes, a hollow oven with a Christmas sound signals that the food is ready before being transported in towering carts to large cold rooms to prevent it from overcooking.

British Airways expects to serve 380,000 Christmas dinners (including 600,000 Brussels sprouts) in the air over the festive period.

My final stop is the 'plating room', where dozens of employees wearing thermal clothing and woolen hats under their blue hairnets (the room is kept at a cool temperature of 8 degrees Celsius) and long blue plastic gloves prepare meals for Business Class with impressive precision -passengers.

Everything is done by hand and the employees work along the conveyor belt, carefully adding the vegetables one by one.

At the end of each shiny silver station sits a 'gold monster' in an oval porcelain bowl to show what each dish should look like. I keep a close eye on it as I place three small but perfectly roasted carrots on top of the parsnips, followed by a dollop of the cranberry sauce I made a few hours earlier.

“We spend a lot of time designing our menus and testing them again and again until they meet the standard,” Newrest development chef Andy Bailey, 53, tells me.

So how long do these dishes sit before they reach the passengers? For British Airways, the food we prepare is served on board the next day.

Approximately 90 percent of the meals at this facility are produced for British Airways (the remainder are for Air Mauritius, Air Transat, Delta and Vueling). Every week Newrest supplies BA with 52,000 sandwiches, 47,000 desserts, as well as 20,000 bottles of sparkling wine, 45,000 red wine and 20,000 cans of beer.

“The perception of airline food is changing,” Mark Brega, BA's chef, tells us later as we taste a Christmas roast as if we were on board. Famous chefs are involved and passengers now have much higher expectations.”

As aviation becomes more crowded and competition intensifies, airlines are now pouring huge amounts of money into their meal services to differentiate themselves.

Cathay Pacific introduced Michelin-starred meals for first and business class passengers flying from Hong Kong earlier this year, while Etihad is offering seven-course tasting menus for those turning left. But this higher food standard doesn't just apply to those in the fancy seats.

Qatar Airways serves passengers in all classes (including economy) a popular mezze of hummus, muhammara, tabbouleh and Arabic bread.

Interestingly enough, I'm learning how our taste buds in the air don't function as well when the air on the plane is drier, causing our nasal passages to dry out and our taste buds to become less sensitive and able to detect flavors.

“You lose about 30 percent of your taste buds, so we have to take that into account when cooking,” says Mark. 'Generally British food is very good, but it has a light flavor profile, so spicier, more aromatic dishes tend to work better. Buttered chicken or chicken tikka masala are among our most popular dishes.

'The same goes for wine; Some of these taste brilliant on the ground but can taste terrible in the air, so it needs to be tested.”

The smell of food is also carefully taken into account when designing meals. 'Fish like mullet smell can fill a hut and should be avoided. But the smell of bread is extremely attractive and signals to passengers that they are looking forward to a tasty meal.'

Generally, 70 percent of onboard meals are meat or fish, with the remainder consisting of vegetarian, vegan or special diet dishes (the team has to cater for 11 different 'diets'). But this may change depending on the route. For example, on flights to India, most meals will be vegetarian.

And what about the crew? The flight attendants eat what's left after the shift, while the captain and co-pilot eat several meals in case either of them gets sick.

After my eight hour shift I will be very happy that I won't see a Brussels sprout again until the big day. But more importantly, the next time I'm asked 'chicken or fish?', 'beef or vegetarian?', I'll think of Andy and his colleagues – and enjoy extra flavour.