Been reading this topic with bemused interest. I can't, for the life of me, see why people think aircrew being fed for free is a "perk"......it's a very simple and salient fact crews have to be fed for all the Flight Safety issues mentioned....nothing more or less. This detail of course has been lost on the beancounter fraternity which is where the real ire should be directed.
Never part of the ME world so I can't comment on the "custom and practice" of the removal of food ( other than one dark and sh$%y night at Valley when a Shack lobbed in...the M/Eng appears with a simple proposition--"Here's the food, here's the oil, there's the engines".)...seemed like a fair deal to us at the time. However, in the civi world, it's pretty much the same on a Line station..there are the written rules and the "unwritten rules".....just like the RAF in fact...about removal of food and other items like tea and coffee....
after the flight. I never went hungry and neither does any Line engineer if you play the game properly. Simple as that.
On the subject of Vulcan crew meals however, as I understand it there was a Hot Loc type of tub for in flight hot meals ? I mention this because also at Valley, a Vulcan dropped in on a Mickey Finn and said crew had to be fed...
unfortunately, for them, the duty cook ( euphimism here ) was the original SAC Bloggs ....hence on nights we came to the "arrangement" of cooking our own meals when he was on duty....thus ensuring we got fed !.....however, your man excelled himself on this occassion by providing....jam sarnies
in lieu of anything more substantial....which must have been an interesting experience for the crew when they came to eat !