orbitmic

I agree with you on that. I don't think we should relate the fact that someone eats McDonald's or anything else to any form of education/refinement/acting in a civilised way. That's actually the point I was trying to make half jokingly when I said that most of the people I've seen eating fast food in plane often came across as very posh because I don't think people should assume that they are "chavs". Incidentally, I think it is also entirely unrelated to age, I've seen some fairly mature people doing it and some very young ones who wouldn't dream of it.



I can only speak for myself but in my case, for instance, if I bring my own food (which I do on BoB flights like BA sometimes) I can assure you that I would never consider taking a tuna salad (something I quite like at home from time to time) on a plane, and would have the same reaction if 1A had brought that (though I do think that for some reason, the smell of cold food lingers and permeates less than cold ones. Or to directly illustrate your point about snobbishness, another food I absolutely adore but which smells quite strongly and which I know many people do dislike is fresh truffle. To me, toasted bread with good olive oil, thin slices of fresh truffle and a bit of fleur de sel is close to culinary heaven (and I think we'll agree that whatever social element it evokes is very different from McNuggets) but it is another food I would absolutely not consider taking onboard a train and plane and would prefer people would not (even though that specific smell wouldn't bother me personally, I'm quite certain there will always be some people in the cabin who would find it very overpowering and intrusive).

Basically, in my case I react to the question of smelly food the same way I react to the question of loud phone conversations or music or someone sat directly across you on the train who'd keep fidgeting in a way that you could not possibly not see. I'm totally cool with anything people want to eat, say, do or for that matter whatever they want to drink or smoke, whoever they want to do intimate things with and so on, but I just much prefer it not to intrude into my space and I appreciate when people show consideration for (or at least awareness that) some of their choices have a tendency to do just that and to become part of other passengers' life and senses without them having chosen that. Whether the smell comes from McNuggets or from some super posh $100 designer burger with prime wagyu, foie gras, and gold specs is entirely irrelevant to me, I would just prefer that someone else does not make that choice for me. .