Fans adore this backstage footage of Elvis Presley. He wears a bright blue jumpsuit, minutes from walking on stage, and holds a messy sandwich in both hands. Somebody tries to ask him a question. He is far too busy eating. He takes a bite, looks at the camera, and issues one instruction to whoever is making the next one.
“Don’t forget the banana.”
The sandwich in question is the most famous thing he ever ate. Peanut butter, sliced banana, and crispy bacon, on bread fried in butter until it goes golden. It has been known ever since simply as the Elvis.
Elvis Presley Backstage Making His Famous Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich
He genuinely treated it as fuel rather than a treat. A 1970s Elvis show was two hours of singing and karate moves under heavy stage lights in a lined jumpsuit — properly punishing physical work. The combination of sugar, salt and fat gave him a fast burst of energy before he went on.
His longtime partner Linda Thompson, who lived with him for four and a half years, has explained how it was actually made: the banana must be ripe, and it must be mashed, not sliced whole. She also surprised a room full of fans by admitting something nobody expected. She never once saw him finish a whole one. He usually took a couple of bites.
Elvis Presley’s Lethal Diet Uncovered
The bigger version of the same idea became legend. The Fool’s Gold Loaf was an entire loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jam, and a pound of bacon. In February 1976, after midnight at Graceland, Elvis talked about it—and then flew his private jet to Denver to eat some, landing at 1:40 in the morning. They ate in an aircraft hangar and flew straight home. They never left the airport.
The rest of his diet was much the same. He loved fried food, sweet food, and Southern comfort cooking; he disliked vegetables and drank soft drinks constantly. He reportedly barely touched water.
It is impossible to write about this without acknowledging where it went. Elvis died at 42, and the diet was part of a wider decline that also involved prescription medication and years of exhaustion.
But that footage is from a good year. A man in a blue jumpsuit, laughing, holding a sandwich, telling somebody not to forget the banana.