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Honolulu Lite
TWO amazing developments were revealed recently in the realm of crime and punishment in Honolulu: 1) Detainees at the Honolulu Police Department are being fed essentially airline meals and 2) Some police officers might be intercepting some of those meals for themselves. Food for
thought from HPDThis raises two important questions: Is it cruel and unusual punishment to force prisoners to eat airline food? And why would a presumably intelligent police officer voluntarily consume such material?
Star-Bulletin reporter Rod Ohira pointed out in his story last week that the food problem began because the police station doesn't have a kitchen. So food has to be brought in for prisoners. The department apparently contracts with a private company to bring in airline-type meals.
You'd think the American Civil Liberties Union would be all over this. I believe there is a clause in the U.S. Constitution specifically barring the serving of airline food to prisoners. There should be a Constitutional ban on airline food being served to airline passengers, but that's another problem.
Now, I know that some big-name local chefs have begun getting into the airline food business, the goal being to change the way people think about airline food. I hope it works. But there is a possibility it might just change the way people think about these chefs.
The evolution of airline food is interesting. It took years of experimentation to learn how to extract every molecule of flavor from a piece of chicken. It took even longer to learn how to perfectly dry out a roll. The greatest breakthrough, however, was coming up with recipes that managed to make any entree taste almost exactly unlike what it appears to be. I've had meat that tasted like lettuce, lettuce that tasted like mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes that tasted like a linen napkin. I won't tell you what the napkin tasted like.
I've often wondered why airlines don't just load a big pot of chili, roll it down the aisle and ladle it into bowls. That would be simple and tasty, and, as long as they made the chili sans beans, fairly inoffensive. Most airline passengers would rather have a bag of microwave popcorn or a ham sandwich than some fancy-shmancy mystery meat surrounded by string beans that are too green for their own good.
ANYWAY, so now these poor murderers and bank robbers, on a brief stopover at the police station on their way to a year or two in prison and probable pardon by the governor, are subjected to airline food. It likely is the worst thing they'll face as guests of the state. Once they get to prison, the food's pretty good. That's because it's prepared by prisoners. And prisoners aren't going to deliberately cook stuff they detest.
Apparently, the airline meals coming into the police station looked edible enough to entice some police officers to indulge. The matter is under investigation and it might be a good idea to call the police psychologist in for consultations.
The officers allegedly involved may have put in specific requests for certain meals, like bacon and eggs. That's hard to believe. If you've ever eaten scrambled eggs that have gotten cold and hard, you can't imagine anyone doing it on purpose. So this whole thing might be a vicious plot by angry detainees to frame the officers in charge of the cellblock.
If it turns out the officers ate more than $20,000 worth of the meals intended for detainees, they could be charged with both theft and being the least gastronomically discernible beings on the planet.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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