Recreating The "Elvis Sandwich"

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, Unchained Melody as performed by Elvis Presley!)

It's Elvis Week, that seven-day slice of time so named for being the anniversary week of Elvis Presley's death.

Everybody knows how much the guy liked fried peanut butter-banana sandwiches, but there was another, more interesting sandwich with stranger lore behind it: The Fool's Gold Loaf.

The Fool's Gold Loaf I made.

 

Some people call it "The Elvis Sandwich," as if it's his signature sandwich that absolutely everyone knows about INSTEAD of the peanut-butter banana...

I digress.

The legend goes that on February 1st, 1976, Elvis and a couple of his cop friends were reminiscing over an absolute madlad creation from Denver, Colorado. It was crafted by a bakery called the Colorado Mining Company- the Fool's Gold Loaf. An entire loaf of French bread with a jar of jelly, a jar of peanut butter and a pound of bacon inside. The outside was slathered in two tablespoons of margarine. That very night they went to the Memphis airport and took off in the Lisa Marie, Elvis' private jet named after his daughter, to taste that crazy sandwich again.

It's easy to think this sandwich may have been why The King died- pretty much the theme of this article which is more detailed. Look at Wikipedia's cited sources on the Fool's Gold Loaf if you want more lore.

I'm not here to relay recycled information you can find elsewhere (and better-written). I wanted to finally recreate the sandwich for myself and share my thoughts.

First I'll detail what variant I'd like to make. There are grape jelly and blueberry jelly variants. While raspberry jelly is obviously the best, I'm using blueberry jelly since I believe it's more authentic and also better than grape.

Instead of margarine I'm using butter, since butter is better, my family doesn't use margarine, and we're not about to buy a tub of margarine just to use two tablespoons of it.

I think you're also "supposed" to fry the entire sandwich after assembly, but I'm just going to bake it after slathering it with butter. Might as well be the same thing.

THE PROCESS

I started by preheating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, then hollowed out the loaf with a steak knife.

 

Then I used a large spoon to fill the inside with creamy peanut butter.

I was surprised to find both the whole jar of peanut butter and the whole jar of jelly fit into this baguette- though it was a small jar of jelly and I kinda ate two or three pieces of bacon. Maybe.

The bacon was the tedious part. I stacked the whole package between paper towels on a plate, then microwaved and flipped the whole thing a minute at a time. I finally got impatient and zapped 'em for two minutes and they were at a satisfying cooked-ness.

I microwaved two tablespoons of butter in a glass dish, then slathered the sandwich with a basting brush.

I then baked the absolute mammoth for 15 minutes.

CONCLUSION

This thing came out crispy and flaky on the outside, super hot and gooey on the inside. 

Goooeyyyy.

I mean, man. This thing is just awful. In the absolute best way possible. If this thing killed me... Well it wouldn't be worth it but I'd pretend it is. Food trucks need to do this. Parties need to do this.

Maybe I should be more specific.

You're gonna need something to drink with this, for sure. It's rich. It's messy. It's sticky, and gooey, and disgusting and awful and wonderful. I'm glad I used blueberry jelly, because do you know how good cooked blueberries taste and smell and are? Cooked blueberries have almost the same effect on me as anise. Man. The fillings cake onto the inside of your mouth. The flaky outside is thin, but satisfying.

The sweet jelly with the smoky bacon remind me of barbecue sauce, but without the tang. Imagine if it was raspberry jelly after all.

Unfortunately I'm not entertaining a large crowd (though I'll remember this sandwich if I ever attend a potluck hosted by an Elvis impersonator), so I'll have to put this in the fridge. I don't know how it will hold up then, but there's always the toaster. I don't put sandwiches in the microwave.

I will leave you off on this haunting, legendary performance by the king himself. This was one of his final performances, done on June 21, 1977. Less than two months before he died.

Try not to let food kill you, and remember to stay sexy.