On a velvet cloud The King will be sitting down for his favourite snack today so let’s all go peanuts for Elvis’s 90th birthday.
Elvis being a good ol’ Southern Country Boy loved his soul food.
And anyone walking in his footsteps in Memphis will naturally want to drop in on his favourite diner Downtown at The Arcade Diner.
Where you can sink your teeth into Elvis’s famed ‘Fried Peanut Butter N’Banana’ with an extra of bacon just to pile on the carbs.
As is the way with Elvis folklore there are competing stories as to its provenance.
The birth of the Elvis sandwich
Some accounts have it that Elvis and his bodyguards refuelled as was their way after a gig in 1976, a year before his death.
And they hit the now-closed Colorado Mine Company restaurant for a bite to eat.
There, he is said to have ordered a Fool’s Gold Loaf.
A sandwich made with a loaf of sourdough bread, a pound of bacon, a jar of peanut butter, weighing in at a not unsubstantial 8,000 calories.
If though you prefer the more elaborate tale more in keeping with Elvis excess then how’s about this one for curing the munchies.
With Elvis returning to Graceland and getting hangry and jumping on his private jet with a couple of friends to fly to Denver.
Where the owners of the restaurant met him at the hangar .
With a pile of the enormous sandwiches (some say they brought 22, others say 30).
And he never left the hangar, washing the scran down with Perrier and Champagne and heading back to Memphis.
Elvis’s people
The more prosaic explanation is that the Zepatos family who knew Elvis well would give him his own favourite food.
At his own booth when he’d park his golf buggy up.
And just chew the fat with him and ask him about dad Vernon and mum Gladys.
Now the Arcade Diner, Memphis, Tennessee‘s oldest, is still in the hands of the Zepatoses, the fourth generation.
Because for all the spotlight Elvis brings Memphis they like to keep things in the family.
And as they’ve always been around here.
The Graceland business
Graceland, of course, is still a family business under the tutelage of the formidable Priscilla.
With the family still rolling in and embracing the greater family, the fans.
This week is poignant of course with the passing of Lisa Marie.
And the tributes and performances and retrospection on Elvis.
Nine decades on from his birth in Tupelo, Mississippi.
A host of events are taking place through Graceland.
Nigella’s nutty sandwich
For us, of course, we will watch his films, listen to his music and perhaps even dress up too.
And here with the help of one of our most celebrated chefs Nigella Lawson.
We give you the recipe for his peanut butter and banana sandwich.
From the cookbook Love Me Hunger…
So let’s all go peanuts for Elvis’s 90th birthday and make our own King’s sandwich.
