Please?
I have a huge batch of green 'maters on the vine, and I love love love FGT, but I have no idea even the basics of making them. There was also some tangy sauce that I had with them in Kentucky, bonus points for a sauce recipe as well.
Fried Green Tomatoes are easy. Just slice, hit them with a little salt and pepper, and let stand on paper towels while you prep the coating, which is just a simple bread crumb mix. A little egg, a little flour, a little bread crumbs or cornmeal. Dip the tomato slice in the eggs, then into the crumbs/flour/cornmeal to coat. Fry in hot oil. Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Most places I’ve been to use a basic Remoulade Sauce.
2 hard cooked egg yolks, sieved
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tbsp. prepared mustard
1 1/2 c. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. Worcestershire
1 tbsp. paprika
1 1/2 tbsp. horseradish
Tabasco to taste
2 tbsp. vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste
Why, you poor thang. Fried green tomatoes are one of the staples of life, and so very easy, once you get the knack of it. I slice 'em, dip 'em in buttermilk and eggs, and roll 'em in half cornmeal, half flour (with a little black pepper). I fry mine in bacon grease (yep, I save it in a jar that I keep in the 'fridge).
ETA: Just found this recipe that sounds similar to my method.
The official Whistlestop Cafe method (or actually the Irondale Cafe, run by Fannie Flagg’s aunt and her partner and on which she based Idgie the Whistlestop Cafe) is a really simple one:
I always add a bit of garlic powder (I do that to everything though).
An important part is the “patting them” between paper towels to soak up the extra grease.
I’ve known people who had chopped up banana pepper to the flour/meal mixture. I don’t personally, but I like the taste as a variation.
And of course remember that these are tomatoes: they can be overcooked but there’s no way to undercook them (or at least no harm’s going to come from undercooking them) so scoop 'em up as soon as they’re browned. Chase with a gallon or two of sweet tea and some fried pickles with ranch dressing. 
Oh, that all sounds divine! Thank you all so much!
So, 'bout that corn meal…white or yellow or doesn’t matter? I’ve some awesome fine ground yellow corn meal **BlueKangaroo **gave me that’s been looking for a use.
silenus, bonus points to you, that sure does sound like the sauce I had in Kentucky. I’m not familiar with it at all, but it looks easy enough. Is the horseradish fresh or “sauce” or what? I can get whole horseradish root at my produce mart and grate it myself if that will work, prob’ly cheaper than a jar at the supermarket.
I’m totally gonna make sweet tea, for sure! Y’all haven’t convinced me on that not-sweet cornbread thing, but your tea beats ours hands down! 
Truth be known I really really prefer sweet “Yankee cornbread” to the southern version- must be genes from that New Jersey ancestor.
Heretic! Burn him!
Prepared horseradish, unless you really want an eye-watering sauce. Cornmeal doesn’t matter. Use what you have.
Why, Sampiro! I do believe you gave **silenus **the vapors!
Tea = sweet.
Cornbread = not sweet.
How hard is that to remember?
As a reformed tomato hater since toddler-hood, I now can’t get enough of them, particularly when they are fried and green. Just last week, I made them thusly:
Coat the 1/3” sliced tomatoes with flour, then dunk in a buttermilk and egg batter. Dredge through cornmeal and fry in a mixture of bacon grease and vegetable oil (to a level not quite covering the tomatoes). Salt and pepper while cooling. Sprinkle with feta cheese crumbs and a chipotle sauce (Newman’s Own Southwest Dressing makes a good alternative). Good stuff!
My family dredged the tomatoe slices in flour/salt/pepper and fried in butter. I’m not fond of the cornmeal style.
How can I be craving fried green tomatoes at 1:16 am? <shakes head in wonderment>
Please excuse an Aussie who doesn’t know better.
Are these green tomatoes special varieties that stay green or just ordinary tomatoes that haven’t ripened yet?
Just ordinary tomatoes that haven’t ripened yet
The way I do it:
Thinly sliced (not potato chip thin, but on the thin side)
Flour, egg wash, bread crumbs (with sugar mixed in if you think green tomatoes are too tart)
5 minutes in a 350 degree oven, then
screaming hot pan with veg oil until browned.
Tonight’s the night! I can’t wait.
I’m going to try a few slices in just fine corn meal, no flour, since the wee one is very obviously and unambiguously gluten intolerant now.
One thing I like to do is pair some good fried green tomatoes with some good ripe tomatoes on the plate. And the tomatoes are in now - yay! Serve with purple hull peas and okra.
Good luck. And honey, if you are wanting some southern cooking please let me cook for you if I’m in your neck of the woods or you are in mine.
nom, nom, nom, nom…urp
Ohmigod, those were good. My tomato plants are in very real danger of never getting to produce a ripened tomato - I may pick them all green!
The corn meal was so very fine ground that I didn’t use any flour at all, and the breading was perfect. Nothing cracked, nothing slid off, nothing went gooey, just a nice thin crisp crust on a firm yet warm tangy 'mater. Luckily, I had quite a bit of bacon grease saved up, so I was able to do it right! These were, if I do say so myself, even better than any I’ve had in a restaurant, even in the South itself. The tomatoes being picked 5 minutes before they were in the pan might have had something to do with that!
I didn’t have time to make the Remoulade Sauce this time, but I used some fancy bottled organic tangy french dressing with a few drops of hot sauce in it, and it was fabulous.
My daughter picked one orangey tomato, not quite ripe, but not green either. So I made her a Fried Orange Tomato, and she loved it. The green ones were too tangy for her, so that was a serendipitous error on her part!
ShelliBean, I’ll totally take you up on that offer! I really want to master chicken fried steak, but so far it eludes me. (I’m not very good with frying things in general.)