One of my favorites (if not the favorite) pieces of info about E's private life.
When I brought Elvis in something that he really loved to eat, he was adorable, sitting up against the pillows, cross-legged in his men’s pajamas. He had this cute little dance he did in bed, where he rocked from side to side, sometimes with his eyes closed, with this beatific smile on his face, almost like Stevie Wonder. That’s how much he loved his favorite foods. It tasted so good to him and made him so supremely content. I can still see him rocking left to right in bliss, enjoying his food.
Linda Thompson on her memoir book, "A Little Thing Called Life: On Loving Elvis Presley, Bruce Jenner and Songs In Between".
Some of the treats Linda mentioned Elvis liked were:
A pound of bacon, a six-egg omelet, and five or six pieces of toast.
"When I took the enormous portion up to him on his tray and put it in front of him, as he’d predicted, he didn’t ever eat all of it. So, no, he didn’t eat oversize portions every night. But sometimes he did eat too much, especially in the wake of 'Aloha from Hawaii,' when he was recovering from the deprivation of that 500-calorie-a-day diet."
PB&B (peanut butter and banana) sandwiches:
"If they were not made exactly the way he required, he would not eat them, and he had no hesitation about sending them back. Make it the way I want it,' he would say to whoever had brought up the food."
"He loved all of the flavors, but I’d say that vanilla and chocolate were his absolute favorites. Sometimes strawberry. What he really adored were ice cream sandwiches, and especially Eskimo Pies, the ones with the crispy chocolate coating encasing a square of vanilla ice cream. Sometimes he ate a whole box at once, with me bringing the treats to him one at a time."
During Elvis Week 2024, Linda said that Elvis requested honeydew melon for dessert, especially when he needed to control his weight gain (which she says, as we can imagine, was often). At night she would bring him his order, one of his favorites according to her, and they would put a towel on the bed, as usual whenever they'd eat in his bedroom. El would sit cross-legged, happily eating his honeydew melon and (occasionally) with each bite he would do that little dance that she told in her book.
As for the food Elvis couldn't stand, Linda said:
"My preferred diet ['Mediterranean diet with a lot of fish and vegetables'] suffered during those years because Elvis would never allow fish to be cooked at Graceland or anywhere we were. He hated the smell of fish."
