Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

THE WEEMS WEEKLY\ \ \ (WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA'S WEEKLY BULLETIN)\ \ \ June 12, 1929\ \ Cafe Opens\ \ \ The Whistle Stop Cafe opened up last week, right next\ door to me at the post office, and owners Idgie\ Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has been\ good ever since. Idgie says that for people who know\ her not to worry about getting poisoned, she is not\ cooking. All the cooking is being done by two colored\ women, Sipsey and Onzell, and the barbecue is being\ cooked by Big George, who is Onzell's husband.\ \ If there is anybody that has not been there yet, Idgie\ says that the breakfast hours are from 5:30-7:30, and you\ can get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham and\ red-eye gravy, and coffee for 25 [cts.].\ \ For lunch and supper you can have: fried chicken;\ pork chops and gravy; catfish; chicken and dumplings;\ or a barbecue plate; and your choice of three\ vegetables, biscuits or cornbread, and your drink and\ dessert—for 35 [cts.].\ \ She said the vegetables are: creamed corn; fried green\ tomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyed\ peas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.\ \ And pie for dessert.\ \ My other half, Wilbur, and I ate there the other night,\ and it was so good he says he might not ever eat at home\ again. Ha. Ha. I wish this were true. I spend all my time\ cooking for the big lug, and still can't keep him filled\ up.\ \ By the way, Idgie says that one of her hens laid an egg\ with a ten-dollar bill in it.\ \ ... Dot Weems ...\ \ \ \ \ \ \ ROSE TERRACE NURSING HOME\ \ OLD MONTGOMERY HIGHWAY\ \ BIRMINGHAM,ALABAMA\ \ \ DECEMBER 15, 1985\ \ \ Evelyn Couch had come to Rose Terrace with her husband, Ed,\ who was visiting his mother, Big Momma, a recent but reluctant\ arrival. Evelyn had just escaped them both and had gone into the\ visitors' lounge in the back, where she could enjoy her candy bar in\ peace and quiet. But the moment she sat down, the old woman\ beside her began to talk ...\ \ "Now, you ask me the year somebody got married ... who they\ married ... or what the bride's mother wore, and nine times out of ten\ I can tell you, but for the life of me, I cain't tell you when it was I\ got to be so old. It just sorta slipped up on me. The first time I\ noticed it was June of this year, when I was in the hospital for my\ gallbladder, which they still have, or maybe they threw it out by\ now ... who knows. That heavyset nurse had just given me another\ one of those Fleet enemas they're so fond of over there when I\ noticed what they had on my arm. It was a white band that said:\ Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode ... an eighty-six-year-old woman.\ Imagine that!\ \ "When I got back home, I told my friend Mrs. Otis, I guess the\ only thing left for us to do is to sit around and get ready to croak....\ She said she preferred the term pass over to the\ other side. Poor thing, I didn't have the heart to tell her that no\ matter what you call it, we're all gonna croak, just the same ...\ \ "It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by,\ but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast\ train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure\ did on me. One day I was a little girl and the next I was a grown\ woman, with bosoms and hair on my private parts. I missed the\ whole thing. But then, I never was too smart in school or otherwise ...\ \ "Mrs. Otis and I are from Whistle Stop, a little town about ten\ miles from here, out by the railroad yards.... She's lived down the\ street from me for the past thirty years or so, and after her husband\ died, her son and daughter-in-law had a fit for her to come and live\ at the nursing home, and they asked me to come with her. I told\ them I'd stay with her for a while—she doesn't know it yet, but I'm\ going back home just as soon as she gets settled in good.\ \ "It's not too bad out here. The other day, we all got Christmas\ corsages to wear on our coats. Mine had little shiny red Christmas\ balls on it, and Mrs. Otis had a Santy Claus face on hers. But I was\ sad to give up my kitty, though.\ \ "They won't let you have one here, and I miss her. I've always\ had a kitty or two, my whole life. I gave her to that little girl next\ door, the one who's been watering my geraniums. I've got me four\ cement pots on the front porch, just full of geraniums.\ \ "My friend Mrs. Otis is only seventy-eight and real sweet, but\ she's a nervous kind of person. I had my gallstones in a Mason jar\ by my bed, and she made me hide them. Said they made her\ depressed. Mrs. Otis is just a little bit of somethin', but as you can\ see, I'm a big woman. Big bones and all.\ \ "But I never drove a car ... I've been stranded most all my life.\ Always stayed close to home. Always had to wait for somebody to\ come and carry me to the store or to the doctor or down to the\ church. Years ago, you used to be able to take a trolley to\ Birmingham, but they stopped running a long time\ ago. The only thing I'd do different if I could go back would be to\ get myself a driver's license.\ \ "You know, it's funny what you'll miss when you're away from\ home. Now me, I miss the smell of coffee ... and bacon frying in the\ morning. You cain't smell anything they've got cooking out here,\ and you cain't get a thing that's fried. Everything here is boiled up,\ with not a piece of salt on it! I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel\ for anything boiled, would you?"\ \ The old lady didn't wait for an answer ".... I used to love\ my crackers and buttermilk, or my buttermilk and cornbread,\ in the afternoon. I like to smash it all up in my glass and eat\ it with a spoon, but you cain't eat in public like you can at home\ ... can you? ... And I miss wood.\ \ "My house is nothing but just a little old railroad shack of a\ house, with a living room, bedroom, and a kitchen. But it's wood,\ with pine walls inside. Just what I like. I don't like a plaster wall.\ They seem ... oh, I don't know, kinda cold and stark-like.\ \ "I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a\ swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to\ hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from\ the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture\ for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I\ don't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to\ notice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so\ she's in the closet with my gallstones.\ \ "I'll be glad to get home.... Of course, my house is a mess. I\ haven't been able to sweep for a while. I went out and threw my\ broom at some old, noisy bluejays that were fighting and, wouldn't\ you know it, my broom stuck up there in the tree. I've got to get\ someone to get it down for me when I get back.\ \ "Anyway, the other night, when Mrs. Otis's son took us home\ from the Christmas tea they had at the church, he drove us over the\ railroad tracks, out by where the cafe used to be, and on up First\ Street, right past the old Threadgoode place. Of course, most of the\ house is all boarded up and falling down now, but when we came\ down the street, the headlights hit the\ windows in such a way that, just for a minute, that house looked to\ me just like it had so many of those nights, some seventy years\ ago, all lit up and full of fun and noise. I could hear people\ laughing, and Essie Rue pounding away at the piano in the parlor;\ `Buffalo Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight' or `The Big Rock Candy\ Mountain,' and I could almost see Idgie Threadgoode sitting in the\ chinaberry tree, howling like a dog every time Essie Rue tried to\ sing. She always said that Essie Rue could sing about as well as a\ cow could dance. I guess, driving by that house and me being so\ homesick made me go back in my mind ...\ \ "I remember it just like it was yesterday, but then I don't think\ there's anything about the Threadgoode family I don't remember.\ Good Lord, I should, I've lived right next door to them from the day\ I was born, and I married one of the boys.\ \ "There were nine children, and three of the girls, Essie Rue and\ the twins, were more or less my own age, so I was always over\ there playing and having spend-the-night parties. My own mother\ died of consumption when I was four, and when my daddy died, up\ in Nashville, I just stayed on for good. I guess you might say the\ spend-the-night party never ended..."\ \ \ From the Trade Paperback edition.\

\ The New York TimesA real novel and a good one...[from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.\ \ \ \ \ Los Angeles TimesIt's very good; in fact, just wonderful.\ \ \ Publishers WeeklyWhen Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn Couch meet in the visitors lounge of an Alabama nursing home, they find themselves exchanging the sort of confidences that are sometimes only safe to reveal to strangers. At 48, Evelyn is falling apart: none of the middle-class values she grew up with seem to signify in today's world. On the other hand, 86-year-old Cleo is still being nurtured by memories of a lifetime spent in Whistle Stop, a pocket-sized town outside of Birmingham, which flourished in the days of the Great Depression. Most of the town's life centered around its one cafe, whose owners, gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits (both true and hominy) to anyone who passed by. How their love for each other and just about everyone else survived visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry hoboes, a murder and the rigors of the Depression makes lively reading -- the kind that eventually nourishes Evelyn and the reader as well. Though Flagg's characters tend to be sweet as candied yams or mean clear through, she manages to infuse their story with enough tartness to avoid sentimentality. Admirers of the wise child in Flagg's first novel, Coming Attractions, will find her grown-up successor, Idgie, equally appealing. The book's best character, perhaps, is the town of Whistle Stop itself. Too bad the trains don't stop there anymore.\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher"The people in Miss Flagg's book are as real as the people in books can be. If you put an ear to the pages, you can almost hear the characters speak. The writer's imaginative skill transforms simple, everyday events into complex happenings that take on universal meanings."\ --Chattanooga Times\ "This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten."\ --Los Angeles Times\ "A sparkling gem."\ --Birmingham News\ "Watch out for Fannie Flagg. When I walked into the Whistle Stop Cafe she fractured my funny bone, drained my tear ducts, and stole my heart."\ --Florence King, Author of Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady\ "Admirers of the wise child in Flagg's first novel, Coming Attractions,\ will find her grown-up successor, Idgie, equally appealing. The book's best character, perhaps, is the town of Whistle Stop itself--too bad trains don't stop there anymore."\ --Publisher's Weekly\ \ \