Customer Reviews

Irondale Cafe Original Whistle Stop Cookbook: Fried Green Tomatoes and other Delicious Recipes From the Irondale-Cafe- The Original Whistle Stop

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The Irondale Cafe Cookbook is a must for every cook, young or old. The recipes are easy to follow and use ingredients that most of us keep on hand. The macaroni and cheese and rice pudding especially remind me of wonderful childhood memories that I was unable to duplicate until I found this cookbook. My copy is well worn. The recipes are full of old fashioned flavor but can be prepared in a short amount of time. This book could make a terrific cook out of someone who doesn't know how to boil water.

The Whistle Stop Cookbook is a delightful compendium of original recipes from the Irondale Cafe in Irondale, Alabama. Cafe (dubbed the "Whistle Stop" by Fannie Flagg, and owned since 1973 by Mary Jo and Bill McMichael). Mary Joy has compiled a spiral bound cornucopia of good eating recipes ranging from Buttermilk Biscuits, Skinless Fried Chicken, Cheese Grits, Refreshing Scallop Salad, Country Ham and Red-Eye Gravy, and Southern Corn Pudding to Mississippi Mud Cake, Hot Pineapple Salad, Marinated Cabbage Slaw, Banana Split Cake, Peanut Brittle Sauce, and Green Tomato Pie. Whistle Stop Cookbook is a very welcome addition to any family kitchen collection.

I love, love, love this cookbook!! I crave my grandma's excellent home cooked meals and this cookbook has the recipes and advice to let you cook just like her.

The companion cookbook to the film!

You can look at the recipe PHOTOS I posted for this book, and see my captions right under each picture.

I never thought of any use for these pictures before, I just happened over the years to jump on my camera when a dish in the making cried: I look good, take a picture!

With over 200 recipes, this unassuming book has more recipes than Fannie Flaggs's Whistlestop Cafe cookbook (150 recipes), or Jamie Oliver's huge "America" cookbook (120 recipes) while taking up less space on your shelf.

All unassuming as it is, it is also ladled with nostalgia and enlivened with quotations thrown here and there ( lots are about friendship - the main theme of the film - such as "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life but what we give"). It's got plenty of nostalgic notes thrown in too, about people, history, etc., and B&W pictures.

I enjoyed making the recipes, it feels a bit like travelling ( I should add here that I am a European).

I read on Amazon.com that this would be the sequel to Flaggs' cookbook. I don't know; but I can tell you that many recipes overlap, and it looks to me that all the great classics such as GFTs are in both books - so if you need to choose between the 2, it might be a good bet to have the one with the most recipes. My opinion only ( Actually, me? I need to have both).

I enjoy just leafing through the book, letting the magical, exotic (Deep South) names jump up at me, evocative but mysterious at the same time ( Country ham & Red-Eye Gravy; Chewy tomato bars; Fluff; Grits; Special angel food cake; Cornbread Salad; Red Velvet Cake...); and am much reminded of this film one of my favourites, Fried Green Tomatoes.

Don't forget to play the FGT soundtrack CD while you cook for added atmosphere - at least the last and rather mystical track, "A Charge To Keep I Have"- it truly takes me back into Irondale Café's village as seen in the film!