Mary Jenkins Langston, 78, Cook for Presley
June 5, 2008
Mary Jenkins Langston, who cooked for Elvis Presley for 14 years, serving him meatloaf, banana icebox pie and his beloved fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, died at a Memphis hospital on Tuesday. She was 78. Her caretaker said the cause was complications after two strokes.
''He said that the only thing in life he got any enjoyment out of was eating,'' Ms. Langston said in ''The Burger and the King,'' a 1996 British Broadcasting Corporation documentary on Presley's eating habits. ''And he liked his food real rich.''
She cooked the meals in king-size proportions: cheeseburgers, chicken-fried steaks, hamburger steaks, caramel cakes and family-size bowls of banana pudding.
''For breakfast, he'd have homemade biscuits fried in butter, sausage patties, four scrambled eggs and sometimes fried bacon,'' she said. 'I'd bring the tray up to his room, he'd say, 'This is good, Mary.' He'd have butter running down his arms.''
She became more than hired help. Over the years, Presley bought her four cars and a three-bedroom home. Last week, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis quoted Jerry Schilling, long a part of Presley's entourage, as saying, ''After a while when someone's there on a daily basis, they become family, and that's how Elvis thought of her.''
Though she served everyone in Graceland, she reserved a special place for its monarch. She knew he wanted his food prepared lightning-fast, and raced to his bedroom, where he devoured the food from a tray as he sat in bed.
''While the rest of us were sitting in the kitchen starving to death, she'd be upstairs talking to Elvis,'' said Richard Davis, one of Presley's former bodyguards.
Though legends spread around the globe about the scope of Presley's palate, Ms. Langston knew the truth. ''It's not true that Elvis liked burnt bacon sandwiches,'' she told The South Bend Tribune at an Elvis festival two years ago. ''He liked his bacon very crisp.''
Details about Ms. Langston were scarce. Her only survivor, a nephew, Fate Mosley, whom she raised, did not know her birthplace or exact birth date. She was married from sometime in the 1980's until her husband died about three years ago. The couple had no children. Several years ago, she moved from the house Presley bought to an apartment.
She started working for the Presley family as a maid in 1963. When Priscilla, Presley's new bride, arrived at Graceland three years later, she promoted her to cook, saying they had a similar preference for homestyle beef and vegetable dishes. After Elvis Presley died in 1977, Ms. Langston stayed on to cook for the family for 12 more years.
In 1984, she wrote a book about her experiences called ''Memories Beyond Graceland Gate,'' using just her maiden name, Jenkins.
Her domain was a wood-paneled kitchen, with harvest gold and avocado appliances, which was added to the Graceland tour in 1995. She returned to honor the occasion.
According to the BBC documentary, Presley's love of food went back to his impoverished childhood in Tupelo, Miss., during which his family sometimes ate squirrel. He never took to filet mignon and caviar, but remained ever fond of pig feet, collard greens, chitlins and the other foods of his childhood.
Once, when Presley was hospitalized and on a restricted diet, Ms. Langston smuggled in bags of hot dogs and sauerkraut.
His cook could also handle new taste sensations, but it sometimes took experimentation and cooperation with others. One morning, Priscilla Presley once said, Elvis asked to try what became his favorite snack after a tour, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. She tried five times but could not get it right.
Ms. Langston tried several ways of decking white bread with thin banana slices and peanut butter, then grilling it. Presley rejected them all.
Then his father, Vernon, suggested toasting the bread before putting it in the skillet. It worked, though grilling the bread to Presley's taste meant using two sticks of butter for every three sandwiches.
''It'd be just floating in butter,'' Ms. Langston said at an Elvis commemoration. ''You'd turn it and turn it and turn it until all the butter was soaked up; that's when he liked it.''
After work, she returned home to cook for family and friends. ''They had peanut butter and banana sandwiches at Graceland, and we had them too,'' Mr. Mosley, her nephew, said. ''And they were good.''
ELVIS'S FAVORITE CORN BREAD
As prepared by Mary Jenkins Langston
1 teaspoon oil
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1. In a 10-inch nonstick skillet, sprinkle 1 teaspoon oil and a little of the cornmeal and heat.
2. In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together and pour into the skillet. Cook until golden brown.
She appeared in the British documentary "The Burger and the King", which dealt
From: the nytimes
''He said that the only thing in life he got any enjoyment out of was eating,'' Ms. Langston said in ''The Burger and the King,'' a 1996 British Broadcasting Corporation documentary on Presley's eating habits. ''And he liked his food real rich.''
She cooked the meals in king-size proportions: cheeseburgers, chicken-fried steaks, hamburger steaks, caramel cakes and family-size bowls of banana pudding.
''For breakfast, he'd have homemade biscuits fried in butter, sausage patties, four scrambled eggs and sometimes fried bacon,'' she said. 'I'd bring the tray up to his room, he'd say, 'This is good, Mary.' He'd have butter running down his arms.''
She became more than hired help. Over the years, Presley bought her four cars and a three-bedroom home. Last week, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis quoted Jerry Schilling, long a part of Presley's entourage, as saying, ''After a while when someone's there on a daily basis, they become family, and that's how Elvis thought of her.''
Though she served everyone in Graceland, she reserved a special place for its monarch. She knew he wanted his food prepared lightning-fast, and raced to his bedroom, where he devoured the food from a tray as he sat in bed.
''While the rest of us were sitting in the kitchen starving to death, she'd be upstairs talking to Elvis,'' said Richard Davis, one of Presley's former bodyguards.
Though legends spread around the globe about the scope of Presley's palate, Ms. Langston knew the truth. ''It's not true that Elvis liked burnt bacon sandwiches,'' she told The South Bend Tribune at an Elvis festival two years ago. ''He liked his bacon very crisp.''
Details about Ms. Langston were scarce. Her only survivor, a nephew, Fate Mosley, whom she raised, did not know her birthplace or exact birth date. She was married from sometime in the 1980's until her husband died about three years ago. The couple had no children. Several years ago, she moved from the house Presley bought to an apartment.
She started working for the Presley family as a maid in 1963. When Priscilla, Presley's new bride, arrived at Graceland three years later, she promoted her to cook, saying they had a similar preference for homestyle beef and vegetable dishes. After Elvis Presley died in 1977, Ms. Langston stayed on to cook for the family for 12 more years.
In 1984, she wrote a book about her experiences called ''Memories Beyond Graceland Gate,'' using just her maiden name, Jenkins.
Her domain was a wood-paneled kitchen, with harvest gold and avocado appliances, which was added to the Graceland tour in 1995. She returned to honor the occasion.
According to the BBC documentary, Presley's love of food went back to his impoverished childhood in Tupelo, Miss., during which his family sometimes ate squirrel. He never took to filet mignon and caviar, but remained ever fond of pig feet, collard greens, chitlins and the other foods of his childhood.
Once, when Presley was hospitalized and on a restricted diet, Ms. Langston smuggled in bags of hot dogs and sauerkraut.
His cook could also handle new taste sensations, but it sometimes took experimentation and cooperation with others. One morning, Priscilla Presley once said, Elvis asked to try what became his favorite snack after a tour, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. She tried five times but could not get it right.
Ms. Langston tried several ways of decking white bread with thin banana slices and peanut butter, then grilling it. Presley rejected them all.
Then his father, Vernon, suggested toasting the bread before putting it in the skillet. It worked, though grilling the bread to Presley's taste meant using two sticks of butter for every three sandwiches.
''It'd be just floating in butter,'' Ms. Langston said at an Elvis commemoration. ''You'd turn it and turn it and turn it until all the butter was soaked up; that's when he liked it.''
After work, she returned home to cook for family and friends. ''They had peanut butter and banana sandwiches at Graceland, and we had them too,'' Mr. Mosley, her nephew, said. ''And they were good.''
ELVIS'S FAVORITE CORN BREAD
As prepared by Mary Jenkins Langston
1 teaspoon oil
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1. In a 10-inch nonstick skillet, sprinkle 1 teaspoon oil and a little of the cornmeal and heat.
2. In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together and pour into the skillet. Cook until golden brown.
She appeared in the British documentary "The Burger and the King", which dealt
with Elvis' unusual diet. In this film she cook a fried PB and 'naner sandwich
on camera.
She was also Elvis' cook during his meatloaf phase, when for about a year and a
half he ate meatloaf every night for supper.
It is no suprise Elvis was obese when you consider the list of items he decreed
be kept in the kitchen of Graceland at all times. He actually wrote out this
list by hand and it includes 31 items, some examples of which are hamburgers
and hot dogs, banana pudding and brownies (both of which had to be made fresh
every night), ice cream, fudge cookies and six cans of biscuits.
It is well known that Elvis had trouble using silverware and preferred to eat
things like sandwiches; in fact, he would occasionally fly from Memphis to
Denver on his plane to pick up subs from a Denver restaurant named Fools Gold.
The people from the restaurant would meet his plane on the runway with subs
consisting of a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly and a pound of fried
bacon. Once he had the subs, they would turn around and fly back to Memphis.
Michael O'Connor - Modern Renaissance Man
"The probability of one person being right increases in a direct porportion to
the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"
More info: http://www.elvisinfonet.com/bookreview_susan_twocooks.html
