Nowadays, more and more cookbooks seem to fit the description of "GastroPorn". In an article of the same name written 20 years ago, Alexander Cockburn used the term to describe cookbooks full of dishes that presumably tasted wonderful but were almost impossible for the amateur cook to prepare at home, due to the unavailability of ingredients or their expense, or both. This continues to be the case. One newspaper currently runs a feature on new cookbooks with particular focus on the practicability of the recipes. In other words, is the book ultimately destined for the kitchen shelf or for the coffee table?
One book currently on the bedside table is The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley. This fascinating book, which formed the basis of a BBC documentary a few years ago, traces Presley's life through his food. It starts with recipes for the food of his childhood (grits, fried green tomatoes, turnip greens), moving through his years in the Army (hotcakes, meatloaf), diner food (hamburgers, milkshakes) and ending with the final years of excess. These were the years when the kitchen at Graceland was staffed 24 hours a day and the King abandoned himself to the pleasures of food. The highlight is probably the recipe for "Fool's Gold Loaf", which calls for a whole buttered loaf, a pound of bacon and a jar each of peanut butter and grape jelly. Truly, food fit for a king. There are also interviews with Presley's cook and valet, his food shopping list and a chapter on his diets, inevitably titled "Love Me Slender". There's something here for everyone, Elvis fan or not.
No doubt Elvis would have identified with Earnest Mickler's book called White Trash Cooking. In his introduction, Mickler writes, "I know you'll want to place this cookbook next to the Holy Bible on your coffee table." Despite this suggestion, White Trash Cooking is emphatically not for the coffee table. From the spiral notebook binding to the wonderful homegrown Polaroid snapshots, this is very much a downhome, democratic cookbook. The style is witty and anecdotal and allows the ordinary people of the South to speak.
Thus we get a recipe for "Reba's Rainbow Icebox Cake" from Big Reba Culpepper of Burnt Corn, Alabama. Many of the staples of poor folk Southern cooking are described - dishes like Hoppin' John, cornbread and collard greens -but it is the less well-known, original recipes that are the real point of interest.
These recipes are a Cal-Ital foodie's nightmare. They come from a world where bacon dripping is the fat of choice and cheese is always processed and comes in laminated slices or, better still, in a spraycan. Highlights include "Nobody's Corn Topper Casserole", "Four-Can Deep Tuna Pie" and "Betty Sue's Fried Okra". But the most jaw-dropping (and stomach-churning) recipe must be ["] "Freda's Five Can Casserole" which contains a can each of boneless chicken, mushroom soup, Chinese noodles, chicken and rice soup and evaporated milk. All of the above are combined and baked for one hour.
Despite these frankly bizarre recipes, it would be wrong to classify White Trash Cooking as a jokey or trivial book. It really acts as a celebration of the food, culture and people of the US South and is devoid of any pretentiousness. As one of the characters says: "Go straight to the kitchen and get it did." Amen to that.
The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley by David Adler (Smith Gryphon, £9.99) from Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin.