Feast 22 June 2003, 12:39

Looking for a recipe for banana bread, I stumbled on one of the Elvis recipes: Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches, the only grilled sandwich that needs to be drained on paper towels. I think the creaming together is for the necessary stickiness (by analogy with grilled cheese), but I am not sure how to get bacon into the equation, in that case. I’d enjoy that one more if the flavours were separate, rather than blended.

Nobody can talk about the cuisine popularized by Elvis without referring to his fat period and subsequent death. I saw the badly-named documentary The Burger and the King on BBC World, which takes a similar tone. However, a smiling black and white picture of the young (thin) Elvis graces the front of the unrepentant Fit for a King cookbook.

I feel pity rather than envy for put-upon celebrities, who in spite of all their power are our sacrificial Jesus Christ Superstars. The documentary left me with the impression that Presley was a deeply depressed individual, who said eating was the only pleasure that remained to him, and I conclude that fat was a symptom rather than the actual disease. But that’d take the mystery out of it, and he is a legend.

Enjoy these “killer” recipes (in moderation, you pedants).

Books:

Great Elvis cameos occur in these books:

A few recipes from Fit for a King are available from Epicurious:

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