Do the wishes of cabin crew (as to what meal they want) over-ride that of passengers?
I'd imagined that CC got the choice of 'what was left' - except the flight deck crew perhaps.
It could get tedious if the remaining meals were always the vegetarian option (though maybe CC would prefer that to the steak?
), but they could at least make their displeasure known to the catering staff. Does the purser have any influence on the number of which type of meals are loaded? After all, the purser has to act as the restaurant manager (amongst other functions) and possibly has some ideas about what 'sells' - or do the caterers merely prepare whatever they have the ingredients for?
Do all flights get the same menu? I appreciate that flights heading for Asian destinations might need different choices to flights heading for Scandinavia.
WRT ordering your meal in the courtesy car, I'd imagine that that's
way too late for the caterers to respond and would result in a knock-on in the supply chain if the actual meal load was dictated by passenger choice (yes, I know that the passenger is the customer, but think about the time needed for getting the prepared meal to the aircraft).