Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a 1987 novel by Fannie Flagg. It weaves together the past and the present through the blossoming friendship between Evelyn Couch, a middle-aged housewife, and Ninny Threadgoode, an elderly woman who lives in a nursing home. Every week Evelyn visits Ninny, who tells her stories about her youth in Whistle Stop, Alabama where her sister-in-law, Idgie, and her friend, Ruth, ran a café. These stories, along with Ninny's friendship, enable Evelyn to begin a new, satisfying life while allowing the people and stories of Ninny's youth to live on. The book, which was made into a 1991 film, explores themes of family, aging, lesbianism, and the dehumanizing effects of racism on both blacks and whites.