The Strict Way Elvis Presley Preferred His Chicken

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Die-hard fans know about Elvis' legendary peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but his eating habits included a lesser-known requirement that reveals something more fundamental about how the King of Rock and Roll approached food. According to Mary Jenkins, one of his longtime cooks who worked at Graceland, Elvis "didn't care for food with bones in it... like fried chicken. He liked it boneless" (via Salon). 

The "no bone chicken" rule is just one of the ways in which Elvis liked to abandon social conventions for his own comfort. For example, Jenkins also related that Elvis would have his cooks cut up the meat into bite-sized pieces before serving it to him. That might be evidence of someone who simply wanted to be completely absorbed in the eating experience, but it could also be that he didn't feel like dealing with bones or cutting food.

The rule is also particularly interesting when you realize that Elvis loved Southern comfort food, since eating fried chicken on the bone is as Southern as traditions come. Bone-in chicken pieces can result in optimal flavor development, softer textures, and juicier meat. In many Southern homes, when families get together for holidays, church suppers, or just because, they gather around tables of fried chicken, made the traditional, bone-in way. In rejecting this method, Elvis also rejected society's conventions.

Elvis is certainly not the first superstar to have some food quirks. In opposite fashion, avant-garde and pop icon Grace Jones is known to request her oysters with oyster knives to shuck them herself, as she revealed in her memoir, "I'll Never Write My Memoirs." What seems interesting about Elvis' chicken preference in particular, though, is how much it embodies his larger overall relationship with living large. For example, Presley's favorite sandwich used an entire loaf of bread, and his favorite cake certainly didn't skimp on ingredients.

The chicken preference becomes even more notable when viewed against Elvis' documented disdain for seafood and fish. Allegedly, he would not allow seafood of any kind to be cooked while he was present in the house. This left a relatively narrow protein palate that would have been heavily reliant on beef, pork, and poultry.

Altogether, Elvis' chicken preference shows how personal habits intersect with practical concerns. What might seem like a trivial food preference actually involved continued adjustments to cooking and ongoing food management from cooks and kitchen staff. This was someone who had control of his stage costumes and his public appearances, who left the building after his shows, crushing the hopes of fans who begged for an encore. To request boneless chicken shows that the same level of strict attention to detail was expressed even in his private life.