Fruit Bat Salad

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Pan Am promotional print materials, circa 1934

From the very beginnings of its passenger service, Pan American Airways went all out in providing passengers with luxurious service, including fresh food on its airplane flights at its various hotels. Pan Am’s chefs mastered the art of creating meal packages that could be assembled whole on the ground and yet presented in flight as prepared fresh. 

A steward on an M-130 preparing a meal

The Martin M-130 that succeeded the S-42 had a full galley on board and could prepare entire meals. The Pan Am hotels at Honolulu, Midway, Wake, Guam, and Manila were full service hostelries that promised guests not only fine dining but a bit of local cuisine too, usually in the form of a local dish or two.

Pan Am’s transpacific services, circa 1940. The route to New Zealand was already open as were the China routes, and apparently also the North Atlantic service

Fresh fruits and vegetables were delivered to the atoll hotels by air or grown hydroponically. Fresh fish, locally caught, was available in Hawaii and Guam as well as Alameda and Manila. 

An early dinner menu (1939) on the Philippine Clipper (NC14715)

Pan Am menus quickly matured from typewritten sheets into foldable brochures (they made great pocket souvenirs!). The food selections put today’s virtually nonexistent service to utter shame

 

The menu for the inaugural flight to New Zealand

The wine list at the Dinner Key restaurant in Miami was exhaustive and reflected the thorough service available to passengers at all the Pan Am-owned hotels and airports

Dinner service on the China Clipper was as good as it got, right down to the maître with obligatory towel over arm

The standard Pan Am table setting could be found aboard the line’s Clippers and in its hotel restaurants

The quality of the food (the airline tried valiantly to present menu items that might be found aboard transatlantic steamers and at the best onshore luxury hotels) was punctuated by the fine china, silver, and concierge service provided to the passengers, most of whom it must be said, expected no less for the price they had paid to fly.  

Pan Am liked to promote the idea of local color for its “Travel Enthusiasts” --- for example, sponsoring a passenger luau in Hawaii. But it’s doubtful that the airline ever went so far as to serve Faniji, a Guamanian fruit bat considered a Chamorro delicacy, to its passengers on the Pacific run (or the Atlantic, for that matter). This fellow was preserved and hung in the lounge of the PAAville Hotel on Wake, where it alternately entertained and gave the willies to passengers and staff