As a child, Jeremy Salamon’s Rosh Hashanah menu could include charoset, latkes and Chinese takeaway. They were just the dishes that his Grandma Agi laid out on her table.

Agi, after whom the 30-year old, award winning chef named his award-winning Brooklyn restaurant Agi’s Counter, is 96; and still lives in Florida where Salamon was raised, although sadly she’s now suffering from dementia.

“She had a very interesting way of presenting different foods — this melting pot of cuisines. Her table might include chicken paprikash with egg noodles together with eggplant (aubergine) parmigiana and Steak Diane. Italian, Hungarian and fifties American! All the influences of her life — fleeing Hungary and being a Jew literally poured out onto the table in a very unconventional way.”
“You literally didn’t know what you were going to get until you sat down. There was something very beautiful about that — it was like a world tour. One time she ordered in Lo Mein from a Chinese restaurant served with a Hungarian cauliflower dish and chicken parmigiana as well as a goulash — and she expected you to eat all of it.”

Agi grew up in Hungary and survived living in a Jewish ghetto in Budapest during the Second World War. She and her family then suffered the Stalinist regime that followed before she fled to America via Austria. Her husband Steve — whom she met in a New York dance hall — had also survived the war; escaping from a Nazi death camp before being hidden in a barn for the rest of the war.

Papa Steve felt so betrayed by their homeland, that while he was alive the pair didn’t return to Hungary even though Agi wanted to. However, after he passed away his widowed grandmother did return within the year, and it was then she started to share more of the stories of her youth. Until then her grandson’s Hungarian menu had been limited to dishes like palacsinta (traditional spongey egg crepes), goulash and chicken paprikash.

It was only when Salamon reached his late teens that Agi also started sharing her recipes. The reticence was also partly down to her not entirely being comfortable with him cooking. “I guess she thought men should be cooked for” he explains.

His mother Robyn loved to entertain and his father’s mother, Nana Arlene was a gourmet cook. Coming from a family in which food had been so central to their lives, a career in cooking felt natural. “It felt like cooking was my superpower to feed others and to bring the family together. Over the years, as I got older and there was drama and divorce, the traditions got less, and the family spent less time together, I felt the need to keep doing that.”

The book is packed with gorgeous Eastern European bakes Photo: Ed Anderson

As a teenager he mainly cooked the brisket and kugels his other Nana Arlene, had taught him. Nana Arlene also took a slightly unorthodox attitude to festival food.

“They both made amazing charoset — filled with prune juice and orange juice, which saturated the rehydrated fruit and mixed with plenty of orange and lemon zest. It was just heavenly schmeared on matzah with butter and was a staple. Even though it’s meant for Passover it made the rounds for every holiday.”

Latkes were another recipe that many of us would consider a Chanukah treat, but which his family enjoyed all year. “They had their staples, and nobody wanted to limit them to one holiday. It was like we’ll eat them whenever we feel like it.”

There was also a smattering of more orthodox Jewish basics although not always in conventional form: “Making matzah ball soup was Nana Arlene’s pride. She would make these very large matzah balls, which is how we serve them in the restaurant, and they would take forever to cook because of their size — sometimes twice the size of a baseball.”

And now many of Agi’s recipes (albeit with his cheffy tweaks and adaptations) are on the menu at Agi’s Counter, which the Michelin Guide describes as offering high-end Jewish and Eastern European-inspired fare. The renowned food lovers’ restaurant bible awarded Agi’s a Bib Gourmand (which recognises good quality, good value cooking.

“At its core, it’s this Eastern European, Hungarian inspired restaurant and that’s Agi’s story — but my story too. There’s a fair amount of influence from Arlene in the restaurant too” he adds.

He credits both his Jewish grandmas and his mother, Robyn with his love of food, and in his recently published cookbook, Second Generation, shares recipes from the restaurant as well as some of the food of his youth. In his introduction he writes that Agi’s Counter is his homage to everything he grew up loving: Hungarian home cooking, Jewish deli counters, Arlene and Agi.

“It’s not my grandmothers’ cookbook but it is my way of sharing a bit of their magic with you.”
 

Second Generation is published by Harvest and is out now in the US and in the UK from November