Trivia / Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

• Anachronistic Animal: A sequence set in 1938 involves Miss Fancy, a real-life elephant who was a popular attraction at the Avondale Zoo near Birmingham in the early 1930s. However, the real Miss Fancy was sold to a zoo in Chicago in 1934. Otherwise, the details of Miss Fancy's notoriously drunken trainer and her habit of escaping and strolling through the streets are historically accurate.
• Queer Show Ghetto: In the film version, the lesbian romance was toned down to being implied instead of explicit to market to mainstream audiences.
• The Red Stapler: Fried green tomatoes, believe it or not, were not widely associated with the South prior to the release of this film, nor could they be easily found there. When you consider that green tomatoes are unripe, and so are picked from the vine to be eaten prematurely (i.e. ahead of an early frost, which most of the subtropical South does not experience), this makes sense. Today you can find fried green tomatoes throughout the South, in restaurants running the gamut from the greasiest spoon to the most genteel fine dining.

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