Hunka hunka burnin' bacon

As an adult, according to various sources, Elvis loved meatloaf, and would eat it for days on end. Living where he did, it would have taken all the willpower in the world to refrain from gorging on Memphis' wonderful barbecue. One of his known haunts was Interstate, known more formally as Jim Neely's Interstate Bar-B-Que. Located just south of downtown Memphis on South 3rd Street, near a corner that's mainly gas stations and convenience stores, it remains a favorite of security guards, truckers and other working-class types. Signed photos of bluesmen and rockers smother the walls. Interstate is from the "wet" school of Memphis barbecue, meaning that most of the meats come extravagantly slathered with sticky sweet barbecue sauce. Those meats include beef and pork ribs, chopped beef, chopped pork, pork sausage, and something called barbecued spaghetti -- pasta mixed with barbecue sauce and tidbits of smoked pork. (Don't knock it till you've tried it!) There is some evidence that Elvis preferred Interstate's chopped pork sandwich with barbecue sauce, with the cole slaw put right in the sandwich -- a concoction every bit as gloppy as the PB&B.

Another Memphis hang that the King frequented early in his career was Arcade, a Greek diner with pink booths, founded in 1919 on South Main Street. The joint serves mainly pizzas and sandwiches, and Elvis usually sat by himself in a dark corner booth, head down, not wanting to be recognized by other diners. Reportedly, his favorite order was cheeseburgers -- well done, please. According to Elvis historian Paul Denton, "In his 20s, Elvis told Country Song Roundup magazine he could polish off eight deluxe cheeseburgers, two bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches and three milkshakes in a single sitting." Not bad for a skinny dude! He also gorged on cheeseburgers at a restaurant called the Gridiron, on U.S. Highway 51.

Among the other foods that Elvis craved -- based on Web accounts that should be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a gram of cholesterol -- were six-egg omelets, banana pudding, cornbread dipped in buttermilk, vegetable soup, macaroni salad, weenie and sauerkraut sandwiches, grits with milk gravy, baked ham, mashed potatoes, pizzas with barbecue sauce, and burned bacon, a pound at a time. He wouldn't have liked another Memphis specialty, fried Mississippi catfish, since he hated the smell of fish. Quoth Mary Jenkins in "Elvis, Memories Beyond Graceland Gates": "Elvis didn't like seafood at all. He wouldn't let us cook it whenever he was in the house. And he didn't care for food with bones in it either, like fried chicken. He liked it boneless." Also according to Jenkins, Elvis' favorite dinner at home was roast beef, duck stuffed with dressing, string beans, creamed potatoes, mixed vegetables and biscuits. He also apparently asked her to cut his meat into bite-size pieces before she served it.

But why just read about what Elvis ate when you can make it yourself? A cottage cookbook industry has sprung up to offer recipes for Elvis' favorite foods. Some are co-authored by people who knew him, but many, like "The Presley Family and Friends Cookbook" by Edie Hand, Darcy Bonfils, Ken Beck, Jim Clark and Donna Presley Early (Elvis' cousin), are larded with jokey recipes based on titles of his songs or movies, such as Blue Suede Shoes Cream of Broccoli Soup, King Creole Lobster Bisque, Too Much Monkey Business Banana Bread, and Hound Dog Homemade Hush Puppies. Of course, no good book can exist without a sequel, so the same authors also barfed out "Are You Still Hungry Tonight?" (not to be confused with another cookbook of almost the same name) and "All Cooked Up."

Other Elvis-inspired recipe collections include "The Presley Family Cookbook" by Vester Presley and Nancy Rooks; "Are You Hungry Tonight?" by Brenda Butler; "Graceland's Table: Recipes and Meal Memories Fit for the King of Rock and Roll" by Ellen Rolfes; "Fit for a King" by Elizabeth McKeon, Ralph Gevirtz and Julie Bandy, which purports to include recipes from Elvis and Priscilla's wedding reception and the Beatles' visit to Graceland. And we can't forget "The I Love Elvis Cookbook" by Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen, which hedges its bets by proclaiming, "Most of the recipes are pretty sinful. Lots of cream, butter and bacon. Oh, yes Elvis loved bacon on just about everything, including his famous Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich. But if that combo sounds a little suspicious, there are dozens of traditional Southern standards sure to pacify the most kingly appetite."

Even road food's royal couple, Jane and Michael Stern, jump into the act with "Elvis World." Though it isn't a cookbook, this scholarly and lavishly illustrated coffee table volume collects many Elvis-related food facts, including his favorite restaurants and an actual shopping list from Graceland, which includes, predictably enough, Pepsi, ground beef, canned sauerkraut, bacon, peanut butter, boxed banana pudding, and canned frozen biscuits. Finally, squarely in the meta-cookbook genre is David Adler's "The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley," which takes what might be a historio-existential view of Presley's caloric intake. "Food, his first love, was the love that destroyed him," declares Adler, while offering a slew of recipes, including one for Elvis' wedding cake, and another for "shit on a shingle," the chipped beef on toast Elvis ate while in the Army. And demonstrating, at least, that it wasn't always good to be the King.

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