Fried Green Tomatoes Trivia
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49 free Fried Green Tomatoes trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Fried Green Tomatoes is one of those films people can quote start to finish, from Evelyn's parking-lot revenge to the secret in the barbecue sauce. Jon Avnet's 1991 adaptation of Fannie Flagg's novel turned an $11 million budget into $119 million, earned Jessica Tandy an Oscar nomination and put the tiny town of Juliette, Georgia, on the tourist map. This quiz covers the film and the book together: the cast, the plot of Whistle Stop past and present, the trial, the Bee Charmer, the soundtrack, the box office and awards, plus the novel's Weems Weekly narration, the real Irondale Cafe that inspired the story, and Flagg's 2020 sequel. Easy questions cover the stars and the story; the hard ones dig into filming locations, chart positions and DVD trivia. Every answer has been checked against documented sources and the source is shown after each question.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What battle cry does Evelyn Couch shout as she rams the car that stole her parking space?
Towanda
Towanda is the fearless alter ego Idgie adopts in Ninny's stories. Evelyn borrows the name, and when two young women take her space she rams their car six times.
Q 02What did Fannie Flagg add at the end of her novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe?
The café's recipes
The café's recipes close the book, presented as Sipsey's own, fried green tomatoes included. Six years later Flagg turned them into a full Whistle Stop cookbook.
Q 03Before writing novels, Fannie Flagg was best known as a frequent panelist on which 1970s TV show?
Match Game
Match Game had her writing answers on cards, though undiagnosed dyslexia made her doubt for years that she could be a writer. She usually sat bottom right, beside Richard Dawson.
Q 04Fannie Flagg chose a stage name because her birth name already belonged to which Oscar-winning actress?
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal, who won her Oscar for Hud, was already on the books at Actors' Equity, so the young actress from Birmingham had to register under a new name and became Fannie Flagg.
Q 05The fictional Whistle Stop Cafe was loosely based on a real cafe in which Alabama suburb?
Irondale
Irondale, just east of Birmingham, is where Flagg's great-aunt Bess ran a small café beside the railroad tracks. Bess was the model for Idgie.
Q 06In Fannie Flagg's novel, the mysterious 'Railroad Bill' is a Depression-era outlaw known for doing what?
Throwing food off trains
Throwing food off trains: the 'outlaw' tosses government food and coal from supply trains by night for hungry families to find, and the novel lets on that it is Idgie in disguise.
Q 07Which fellow Southern novelist praised Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, calling Idgie Threadgoode 'a true original'?
Harper Lee
Harper Lee wrote that airplanes and television had swept families like the Threadgoodes from the South and that Flagg had preserved them. She added that Huckleberry Finn would have tried to marry Idgie.
Q 08Jon Avnet made his feature directing debut with Fried Green Tomatoes after producing which Tom Cruise hit?
Risky Business
Risky Business made Avnet's name as a producer eight years earlier. On his own debut he also worked on the script for years, but a Writers Guild ruling left his name off the writing credits.
Q 09Which TV producer's company, Act III Communications, put up the seed money to develop Fried Green Tomatoes?
Norman Lear
Norman Lear's company paid for a first screenplay, and he stayed on as an executive producer. Three decades later he signed on to produce a television version too.
Q 10Who plays Evelyn Couch, the timid 1980s housewife, in Fried Green Tomatoes?
Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates had just won the Best Actress Oscar for Misery. Her Evelyn starts out as a doormat and, fired up by an old woman's stories, begins standing up to everyone, her husband included.
Q 11Which actress plays Ninny Threadgoode, the storyteller in the nursing home?
Jessica Tandy
Jessica Tandy earned an Oscar nomination for the part. Her Ninny insists she is only in the home to keep a friend company, then spins the Whistle Stop stories for a stranger in the lounge.
Q 12Who plays the tomboy Idgie Threadgoode?
Mary Stuart Masterson
Mary Stuart Masterson's Idgie refuses to stop serving Black customers at the café when the sheriff warns her off, and gives the same welcome to the hobos who pass through.
Q 13Which young actor plays Idgie's adored older brother Buddy in Fried Green Tomatoes?
Chris O'Donnell
Q 21Which small Georgia town stood in for Whistle Stop when Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed?
Juliette
Juliette gained a real Whistle Stop Café out of it: once the crew had gone, the building's owner and a friend turned the film's set into a working restaurant.
Q 22In the film Fried Green Tomatoes, which of her husband's relatives is Evelyn visiting when she meets Ninny?
His aunt
His aunt, who throws Evelyn out of her room, which is how Evelyn ends up in the lounge beside a talkative stranger. In the novel the relative is Ed's mother.
Q 23Made for about $11 million, Fried Green Tomatoes took in roughly how much at cinemas worldwide?
$120 million
Chris O'Donnell won the part after working with Jon Avnet a year earlier on his very first film. His Buddy is the one person young Idgie will listen to.
Q 14Which veteran actress plays Sipsey, the Threadgoode family cook, in Fried Green Tomatoes?
Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson's Sipsey cooks at the café beside her son Big George, and it is she who stops Frank Bennett when he comes to snatch Ruth's baby.
Q 15How does Buddy Threadgoode die?
Hit by a train
Hit by a train, in front of Idgie and Ruth. Years later, when the trains stop running through Whistle Stop, the café closes and the town drifts away.
Q 16Ruth leaves Whistle Stop to marry the abusive Frank Bennett in which Georgia town?
Valdosta
Valdosta is where Idgie turns up with her brother Julian and Big George to bring the pregnant Ruth home, warning Frank that she will kill him if he ever touches Ruth again.
Q 17Who gives Idgie the money to open the café?
Papa Threadgoode
Papa Threadgoode hands over the money so that Idgie can start a business and support Ruth and her newborn son.
Q 18What happens to Frank Bennett's body after Sipsey kills him?
It is barbecued and served
It is barbecued and served to the Georgia detective hunting for Frank, who clears several plates and leaves none the wiser.
Q 19Who gives false alibi testimony at the murder trial that clears Idgie and Big George?
Reverend Scroggins
Reverend Scroggins swears they were at his revival all weekend. Only afterwards does Idgie learn that the 'Bible' he swore on was a copy of Moby-Dick.
Q 20What is Ruth's nickname for Idgie, signed on the card left at Ruth's grave?
The Bee Charmer
The Bee Charmer: the fresh card on Ruth's grave is signed with it, which tells Evelyn that Idgie is still alive.
$120 million, near enough, $82 million of it in North America. When surveys showed younger audiences turning up, Universal recut the ads around Idgie and Ruth.
Q 24In Idgie's tall tale, what carries off the frozen lake that once lay beside Whistle Stop?
A flock of ducks
A flock of ducks: in Idgie's telling they landed one November, the lake froze around them, and they flew off and took it with them.
Q 25Fried Green Tomatoes earned Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress and which other category?
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay: Fannie Flagg was nominated for adapting her own novel, with Carol Sobieski, who had died a year before the film opened. The Oscar eluded them, but the script won the USC Scripter Award.
Q 26Though it only hints at Idgie and Ruth's romance, Fried Green Tomatoes won a 1992 award from which group?
GLAAD
GLAAD praised its rendering of intimacy between women. In Fannie Flagg's novel the two are more plainly a couple than they are on screen.
Q 27On the DVD commentary for Fried Green Tomatoes, how does Jon Avnet describe Idgie and Ruth's food fight?
A love scene
A love scene: that is Avnet's reading of a film that never states the romance outright, though Fannie Flagg's novel leaves little doubt about the two women.
Q 28Who composed the original score for Fried Green Tomatoes?
Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman wrote it, and Jon Avnet hired him again for The War and Red Corner. It was an early credit for the composer of The Shawshank Redemption and Finding Nemo.
Q 29Grayson Hugh's end-title song for Fried Green Tomatoes, 'I'll Remember You', was written by which songwriter?
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan recorded it in 1985 for Empire Burlesque, an album mixed by Arthur Baker. Baker went on to supervise this film's music and reworked the song with Hugh.
Q 30Which singer revives a 1930s Lucille Bogan blues number on the Fried Green Tomatoes soundtrack?
Patti LaBelle
Patti LaBelle sings it. Bogan had cut the song under the name Bessie Jackson, which she apparently adopted to conceal her identity; it is the name in the film's credits.