I Coulda Saved Elvis’ Life Sangwich
My dad, whom you may or may not know because he is pretty much totally famous on the internet, sent me an email detailing the construction of one of his Epic Sangwiches¹ for which he is known. I mean, they’re always different and often questionable (I once watched his face light with mad-scientist glee as he bit into a peanut-butter, mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich) but you can’t really argue with his tactics because he’s a remarkably fit and healthy 60-something-going-on-12-year-old man.
“Okay, so I was craving one of my fave sammies one day. One which, I think maybe, I invented when I was a young experimental lad. My sammy consisted of some nice, nutty whole-grain bread (any bread is fine, even Wonder Bread which rocked you and grampa Jim’s world!). The other ingredients were PNB, honey, sliced banana and usually date halves and walnuts, if I had those last two around. The dates and nuts aren’t mandatory, but that was my ‘ultimate’sangwich.”
I should point at here that we’d often skip the bread part in a animalistic panic to get it all into out mouths faster, and just peel a banana, smear peanut butter and honey on the end, and then stick a walnut piece and a date piece on the end and take a bite. And then repeat until the banana was gone. But I digress.
“You plop a goodly amount of PNB on yer bread, no need to spread it all purdy-like yet.
Then, ya drizzle honey all over the PNB and stir, stir, stir with yer butter knife until the two form a sort of stiff paste*, which happens pretty quickly. (*This step is crucial or you will have honey dripping all over yer lap.) Then ya spread that paste out smoove like on your bread of choice. (Note: At this point, if you are gonna put dates, nuts or anything else on, you have to ‘push’ them into the PNB so they stay put!) Cut yer nanner length-wise into 3 equal slices. Much experimentation revealed that 3 slices will fit perfectly on the bread. If the nanner is very long, just chop the pointy ends off to make a good fit for yer bread. And that was my basic fave sammy. Total ‘energy-bomb’, I think maybe Spartans ate this right before they kicked some country’s ass!”
“Now to my recent project:
I started out to make the above sammy one day last week and started thinking about Elvis’ famous Coronary Gut-bomb2.”
“Me was thinking … hmmm, wish I could make one, but fuck, I don’t eat meatses any more.3 Then inspiration hit me! Make it like Big E would have, but just put a copious amount of that veggy bacon smak you got me at the Co-op and don’t fry it in bacon fat … shaweeet!”4
“I fried it to a greasy golden-brown using my fave zero-trans fat marge in a fry pan. I must admit … pretty damn tasty, even if not the real thing.”
“So that’s what I did here kiddo. It’s not at all true to the original that helped Kill the King, but it’s close enough for me.”
“BTW: I dubbed my version the I Coulda Saved Elvis’ Life Sangwich … heh”
So there you have it! Now you know where I learned to fry things in butter and margarine. And where I learned to render the nutritional value of fruits meaningless.
¹My dad’s dad, Jim, was beloved for a million-n-one reasons, one of which was his ability mangle play the English language like a harp. “Sangwich” was pretty much standard. Another favorite was his announcement that his employer had given him a nice “boneless check” for the holidays.
²A note on the Elvis Sandwich conspiracy: many years ago I read that Elvis’ favorite sandwich was a peanut-butter, banana and bacon sandwich on an entire loaf of that shitty grocery store French bread, after which the entire thing is fried in the hot bacon fat. I remember it down to details: that the sandwich used an entire 1lb. package of bacon, that it took several bananas and often an entire small jar of Skippy (or was it Jif ?). I also remember that they knew this because the person the article was interviewing was one of Elvis’ assistants who had to actually, physically, personally make the sandwiches. Years later people would mention this sandwich and somehow leave out the bacon part – sometimes, rarely, they’d mention it was grilled in bacon fat, but the 1lb. of bacon was missing from the story. In fact, I was home sick watching an episode of Oprah when she’s shown around Graceland by Lisa Marie Presley herself and Lisa Marie mentions that her dad’s favorite sandwich was… that’s right, just a peanut-butter and banana sandwich. WHAT THE FUCK? Isn’t he basically famous for eating this atrociously deadly sandwich (sometimes several a day!) and a entire Ziplock baggie of pills every single day? I mean, aside from being famous for being a musician or whatever it is he was? I can’t believe they’re trying to make it sound like he just ate this healthy sandwich, la-tee-dah.
³ I love how my dad says “any more.” He hasn’t eaten meat since the late 1960′s.
4 Also: No, I didn’t get it from the Co-op. I got it from Buck’s on 5th Ave. in Olympia, Washington. I assume it was just bulk Bacon Salt brand, but maybe not (the bacon salt doesn’t appear on Buck’s website).
You know, I was toying with the idea of making the famous PB-Bacon & Banana Sandwich for a blog post, but I’m not sure I have the balls to make it actual size, because that would mean I’d actually have to eat it. I love bacon, but shit ninja. . .
Okay, so, like five or six years ago my boyfriend, our housemate and I all decided that we should make Classic Elvis sandwiches. And I found these small french loaves at the grocery store, and between three of us we used up about 1.5 pounds of bacon, a jar of peanut butter, six bananas (we discovered it tasted best with A LOT of banana) and then the remainder of the bacon fat.
The condition of making the sandwiches, I grandly announced, was that we could never make them again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. Immediately afterward both my boyfriend and our housemate said they were going to eat another one. And now, years later, we still haven’t made another one, but Mike (the BF) talks it about it practically every week. For reals.
Just…wow. He ate more than one sometimes? One is, like, three days’ worth of food. Poor, poor fat Elvis.
Catastrophysicist: Make one and share, dude! No single human should ever, ever eat that much bread, bacon and peanut butter in one sitting…although I did eat half a Boston cream pie today.
Back in my meat-eating days I was known to get a sammich from the Evergreen CAB that was cheese, bacon, turkey, probably something else…beef, mebby? No vegetables whatsoever. Anyway, this thing was just a big brick of meat, cheese and mayo on white bread, just one step down from a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. It was pretty great.
Zombie Jesus: at first I read your context wrong, and I thought you wanted me to make the sandwich, try to eat it, and document my imminent Heart Attack, which actually sounds like a good blog post. But then I caught on, and what you meant is that you suggest I share it with other people, which I would do if I weren’t surrounded by all these damned vegetarians and vegans and people on a so-called diet and what-not! I would have to eat the whole effing thing by default!
Ha-haaa! Oh man, I genuinely don’t wish harm upon you, Catastrophysicist, but if you had a long, photo-documented blog post about eating the sandwich and then going to the ER I’m afraid I would laugh so hard I’d blow a gasket.
And yes, you can’t make the sandwich in Portland. You know, Mike and I will be passing through Portland soon, maybe we should stop by?
We might be able to work something out, although I have to say my job situation is kind of effed at the moment, as I usually find out if i have to work the night before I am supposed to go in the next morning. It’s a bunch of BS and I’m trying to work my way out of it, but there’s that, and I should stop before I end up writing a dissertation on how whack it all is. But, yes, otherwise that would be nice.