"How does it feel? Was it wonderful?" Everyone wants to know.
   
        I'm slightly embarrassed. It wasn't so wonderful. The Concorde is fast, all right-- three hours and 45 minutes from Paris to Washington, D.C. But it's cramped. And it's stuffy. Supersonic in-flight feeding is uninspired. And that wearing trek from the Concorde to Customs, then taxiing across Virginia to pick up the Braniff flight to Newark, and the numbing cab ride home fritter away the hours and energy gained. But presumably that staccato of detours will end if the Concorde finally lights somewhere closer to Manhattan.
   
        Just for now, let's not brood about decibels or frazzled nerve endings or rattling melmac in the air corridors of Queens. Let's explore what it feels like to fly the Concorde. Well, it feels a little bit like being rich…but not enough. At $1,787 round trip, the Concorde is not as posh as it ought to be.
   
        It's a lean, mean bird, to be brutally frank, all first-class seats three inches narrower than first class in Air France's 747, with a stingy four-inch-wide armrest to share and photophobic windows not much bigger than beer-bottle bottoms. Perhaps the interior designers aimed deliberately for the fiercely banal -- cream vinyl, champagne-on-cream polka dots -- to lull passengers into a sense of convention. Yes, we're about to break the sound barrier, but no…we promised not to disappear beyond the moon. Still, the courturier wins points: The stewardesses' navy-and-white-striped silk dresses are designed not for a Barbie doll or a carhop but for an actual adult woman.

        The service is splendid. The passenger is coddled by professional servants. The Concorde staff are the valedictorians of their class. "I love my job," I hear the steward say. Cynic though I am, I believe him.
   
        Is it wonderful? The Concorde taxis down the runway. It lifts abruptly skyward, racing towards 60,000 feet, to streak above the turbulence. Scarcely a lurch or a bump. I've felt higher on mediocre grass at sea level. The champagne flows. A clock on the cabin wall flashes the speed. Mach 1.01. The steward sets a pale-blue cloth on the tray in front of me. Mach 1.16. The stewardess passes cigarettes. Mach 1.43. A wiggle. Mach 1.85. Canapés. The clock registers Mach 2, 1,350 mph (twice the speed of sound). In the middle cabin, applause.
   
        Is it wonderful? If this is the brave new world of supersonic gastronomy, bring me a round of cheese and a crisp baguette. My mouth is full of déjà-vu. Everything looks better than it tastes, heaped on china rectangles like doll food. There's not much left to say about airline feeding. It's pitiful in tourist and not much to boast about in first class. No need to single out Air France. Except that three years ago, with hoots of triumph, Air France hired the entire Mafia of the nouvelle cuisine-- the Lion of Lyon, Paul Bocuse; the Troisgros brothers of Roanne: Roger Vergé from the Côte d'Azur; imaginative Michel Guérard; pâtissier and candy man Gaston Lenôtre; a baker's dozen of cuisinary stars-- to stir the pots and revise the menus.

        All those hired whisks, and nothing to show for it. Smoked salmon curled around nut-studded butter. A quail egg with a ruffle of something unrecognizable. A jellied quail stuffed with a mundane mousse claiming to be foie gras. I'll eat every polka dot of my 50 grams (about two ounces) of Beluga caviar, a once obligatory luxury of first-class flights that has been cruelly done away with by most airlines. But what have they done to veal to produce this stringy, steamed mess? And must a timbale of spinach be so tasteless?
   
        The glories of French gastronomy have been edited to correspond to the rhythm of supersonic voyage, the brochure boasts. What that means is…they've eliminated salad and cheese, and slicing and serving from the rolling cart. No time or space to roast a rack of lamb to order as on the roomier birds. Everything is rationed out in the airport canteen. There are five strawberries on a leaf under plastic wrap, and an unripe peach. Epicures know there is only one way to eat aloft: a picnic. Why doesn't Air France offer one? A cold stuffed bird, yes, but not one encased in too stiff jelly. Caviar too. Great sausages and cheese. Some truly good pâté. The best bread of Paris, not this tasteless petit pain. A ripe peach or a perfect apple. Some of Gaston Lenôtre's cookies. And a tiny box of his sublime chocolates.

        The Concorde leaps the ocean in three hours. That's how long it takes to serve this "edited" gastronomy. The narrow serving cart lurches up and down the stingy aisle almost constantly, bumping into seats, running over toes, catching in purse straps-- and the passenger is locked into his "edited" seat. As we neared Washington's Dulles International Airport I found myself as restless as if we'd been eight hours aloft. Perhaps the best way to fly is not hungry, but gently drunk.

        Is it worth the $341 round-trip premium over conventional first-class flights? Is it worth paying $913 more than tourist? For a sense of speed? There is none. For the ultimate in sybaritic flight? There isn't space on the Concorde for serious luxury. For convenience? We'll have to wait till the Concorde lands nearby. It's like questioning the value of a $23 lobster at the or $100 silk underwear or $5,000 for a month in Southhampton. If you're in the mood for lobster…love silk next to your skin…need sea spray…if speed is crucial, especially if the company is paying, if you need to be first in your crowd, for adventure, ego, cachet, I suppose the Concorde is the way to go.

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