Dan Pashman: You write that if you had to pick one dish that defines your life it would be matzo ball soup. Can you describe the matzo ball soup that comes to mind when you say that?

Joan Nathan: [LAUGHS] Well, it's a clear matzo ball soup — clear chicken soup, chicken broth, with actually chunks of chicken in it. I like that. But it's the matzo balls that really make it. And I use fresh ginger, sometimes cilantro or parsley, and nutmeg. And I also like it a little bit al dente. I don't like them too soft. 

Dan Pashman: This is Joan Nathan, the legendary cookbook author who’s been documenting and sharing Jewish recipes for decades. Her work has long been indispensable to Jewish home cooks around the country, and the world. Even when she’s among other food luminaries, if you’re talking about Jewish food, it seems everyone turns to Joan, which is what happened when she was in L.A. recently. 

Joan Nathan: Hannah Goldfield from The New Yorker, me, Lori Ochoa, who's the big food honcho at the L.A. Times, and Nancy Silverton, we all went to a new deli that just opened in Highland Park, and we ordered everything on the menu and just tore them apart.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Joan Nathan: And we tried everything, but we critiqued. But we all discussed at length why my matzo balls are the best.

[LAUGHING]

Joan Nathan: I felt so good.

[LAUGHING]

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. This week, ahead of the Jewish high holidays, we’re talking with two cookbook authors. Joan Nathan is an icon, who’s written a dozen cookbooks chronicling Jewish recipes from around the world. Jeremy Salamon is the James Beard nominated chef and owner of Agi’s Counter, in Brooklyn. In his very first cookbook, he’s putting his own spin on the Hungarian Jewish dishes he grew up with.

Dan Pashman: Through these two conversations, we’ll explore how Jewish food around the world has evolved, and where it might be going next. We’ll start with Joan Nathan, who has a new memoir out, called My Life In Recipes. It’s a cookbook with an extra helping of stories, where she opens up about her life and her work.

Dan Pashman: For many Jews, Joan’s recipes are canon. From Eastern European Jewish classics, like brisket and matzoh ball soup, to challah, to recipes from Jewish kitchens in Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe. For decades, Jewish home cooks have turned to Joan Nathan for a taste of the familiar, and for a window into what Jews in other parts of the world eat.

Dan Pashman: Joan was born in 1943, and mostly grew up in Larchmont, a suburb of New York City. Her parents were founding members of the Larchmont Temple, a reform synagogue. They were proud Reform Jews, which is a liberal branch of Judaism that’s less about religious observance, more about applying Jewish values today. 

Dan Pashman: Joan says she dealt with moments of anti-semitism growing up. One seventh-grade teacher waxed nostalgic about a time when there were no Jews in town. So not everyone who was Jewish there was so open about it. When Joan was a teenager, her father suspected that one of their neighbors was Jewish, but he didn't know for sure. So one day, he decided to try and figure out if he was right.

Joan Nathan: So he went to the Bronx and got bagels, and he brought them home and he said, "If they know what they are, they're Jewish, and if they don't, they aren't," and they did, and they were.

Dan Pashman: It was, like, the Jew test.

Joan Nathan: Right, the Jew test.

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: He brought the bagels over to the neighbors, the neighbors recognized them and it was confirmed.

Joan Nathan: Right.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: So just to put a finer point on it, when Joan was growing up, most non-Jews didn’t know what bagels were. Jewish food was still foreign, it hadn’t yet been accepted into the broader American zeitgeist. To the point that awareness of the existence of bagels was actually a secret code used to identify other Jews.

Dan Pashman: Anyway, after high school, Joan left home and went to the University of Michigan for college, and stayed there to get a Ph.D. in French Literature. By age 26, she was ready for something that wasn’t school. In her memoir, she says she wanted two things: To fall in love, but more importantly, to have an interesting life. That year, 1969, she decided to take a two-week trip to Israel. She went there to start her interesting life, but she ended up falling in love … with the country.

Joan Nathan: It was a sense of hope, it was young and the leaders had hope ... [SIGHS] and it was the future.

Dan Pashman: Joan’s visit to Israel only lasted a couple of weeks, but a few months later she returned, this time with plans to stay a while. Because she spoke English and French, she managed to get a job working in the press office of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek. When reporters came to town for a story, she’d accompany them. She also acted as a tour guide for visiting celebrities, including once for Barbra Streisand.

Dan Pashman: One day, Joan went with the mayor and his deputy on a trip to an Arab village outside the city. The village wanted Jerusalem’s government to pay to have a road paved, and the mayor had gone there to tell them that it was too expensive. When they arrived, Joan felt out of her element — she was the youngest person at the meeting, and the only woman. When they all sat down, they were offered Turkish coffee with cardamom pods. After some chit-chat, they got down to business.

Joan Nathan: And the mokhtar, who was the leader of the village, said to Teddy, "You know, our neighbor has a paved road, why can't we have it?"

Dan Pashman: Mayor Teddy explained that the neighbor’s road was a lot shorter. The road this village was asking for was much longer, and would cost ten times as much to build. The Mokhtar nodded, and invited them to stay for lunch.

Joan Nathan: They had all these hors d'oeuvres and, you know, lots of mezza, which are different salads …

Dan Pashman: The hosts brought out cheese and olives, eggplant spreads, and arak, an anise liqueur. The mokhtar pressed his case again, but Teddy said the road was just too costly. Then, more food came out.

Joan Nathan: They had prepared this feast for us of a chicken that I'd never had in my life. It's called musakhan. It's on this big pita bread, with lots of olive oil and sautéed onions and different spices and just delicious.

Dan Pashman: One of the things that makes this dish so special is that the chicken is partly cooked on the pita. 

Joan Nathan: And they put the whole thing in the oven for a little bit, together so that the juices come, and then you eat it with your right hand.

Dan Pashman: The tender, spiced chicken and pita soaked in juices made a real impression. Here's Joan, reading from her memoir, about what happened next:

Joan Nathan: As we feasted, something remarkable happened. We forgot to be uncomfortable. I forgot that I was the only woman. Teddy forgot that he was there to say no to a road. By the time we had eaten our fill of the chicken and we're sipping our mint tea, everyone had gotten what they wanted. The mayor got fed probably one of the finest meals of his life. The village, they got their road. And me? Well, I got a lifelong career. That meal showed me how food can break down barriers and bring people together. I understood then that food is not ornamental, it is central and worthy of study, and that I could explore the world through food. I also got my favorite chicken dish. 

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Dan Pashman: Joan spent two and a half years in Jerusalem, working for the mayor, and in her spare time, documenting the foods that everyday people were cooking in their homes. When she came back to the U.S., she had a manuscript for her first cookbook, The Flavors of Jerusalem — which included a recipe for mousakhan, the chicken dish she ate in that village. 

Dan Pashman: She pitched it to 16 publishers before she got any offers. She says the problem was that publishers assumed that a book about Jerusalem would be about Jewish food, but Joan wanted to tell the whole story of Jerusalem, a multicultural city, with the foods of Jews and Muslims and Christians. This also meant that not all the recipes were kosher. 

Joan Nathan: These publishers, what they said was, "If it's not kosher, no one’s going to buy it." They just didn’t understand.

Dan Pashman: Eventually, one publisher got it. The Flavors of Jerusalem came out in 1975. It was a revelatory book for American audiences about a complicated and diverse city inhabited by people and traditions from all over the world. The book quickly sold 25,000 copies, which is a lot. In other words, it was a hit.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: From there, Joan began documenting Jewish cooking in America, first for the Boston Globe, and then for The Washington Post. In the mid '70s, she met Judith Jones, a legendary cookbook editor. Joan had an idea for a cookbook of Jewish holiday recipes, but Judith wasn’t interested. Judith said she already had an author working on a Jewish cookbook, which, we should mention, is something a lot of cookbook authors from minority groups have heard from the publishing industry — we already have one of you. 

Dan Pashman: Anyway, Judith suggested that Joan write a book about general American cooking instead. But Joan wasn’t interested. She thought there was still a lot more to say about Jewish food, and that she was the one to say it. She turned Judith down, which was a very bold move at the time.

Dan Pashman: In 1979 Joan published The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, a seminal book that’s still in print today. A decade later, Joan reconnected with that esteemed editor, and now the roles were reversed. Judith, the editor, was asking Joan to write a new Jewish cookbook. 

Joan Nathan: She said, "You've done this, Jewish holidays, how about writing a book on how Jews have influenced American food, and how food has influenced Jews.", and I thought, “What a great idea.”

Dan Pashman: So Joan got to work, finding Jewish recipes from all over the country. In 1994, Joan released Jewish Cooking In America. The book documented the diversity of Jewish food in a way that it had never been done before. Joan wrote about how gefilte fish is made with white fish in the Midwest, haddock in New England, and salmon in the Northwest. And she found international influences in all kinds of American Jewish foods, from Germany and Poland to Syria and Morocco. Beyond that, the book also showed how Jews were influencing mainstream American food culture. 

Joan Nathan: And that was my most important book, actually. I never realized at the time, but somebody just interviewed me a few months ago and said — you know, she'd been tracing my life — and she said, "This book put Jewish food on the American map.”

Dan Pashman: From there, Joan just kept exploring. She wrote another cookbook about Israel, and then wrote a book about Jewish cooking in France. After that came King Solomon’s Table, tracing Jewish recipes around the world. 

Dan Pashman: After all, Jews have settled on every continent on the planet at one point or another, often seeking refuge after we were driven out of whatever place we were in before.

Dan Pashman: What Joan found was that throughout history, Jewish food has seen so much change, but there are still customs and rituals that keep it rooted in tradition. For one, there are kosher rules, which offer guardrails. Even though a family doesn’t keep kosher, most aren’t usually having pork on the Jewish holidays. Another consistent theme?

Joan Nathan: The wonder to me of Judaism is because it says that you should have the Sabbath, even if you're not very religious — like, in the United States, Shabbat, Friday night dinner, is a big deal. And it was a big deal in my kid's Quaker school, where their non-Jewish friends would come over to our house for Friday night dinner. 

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Joan Nathan: Coming together once a week and also for holidays, and I think that's what's really — it's sort of wondrous.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This past April, Joan released My Life In Recipes, it’s part memoir, part cookbook. When she was doing interviews for the book, she often got asked if this would be her last book, cause she’s in her 80s. And she said yes, this was definitely her last book. Then she dropped a surprise on us — in November, she'll be publishing a children's book, inspired by the food she makes with her grandchildren, called A Sweet Year. 

Joan Nathan: They're very excited about it. They're six-years-old, live in L.A. And we filmed it all on Martha's Vineyard when their parents were away. I could never have done it if their parents were there.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Joan Nathan: But we ... You know, we did ... There are recipes in there like a Persian punch where you roll a pomegranate till all the arils, or all these, you know, little seeds, puncture, and then you put a straw in. They can sip it and they loved doing that. You know, they're all kinds of pancakes, and you know, things that kids like to do — pasta dishes. And I can show them how to make butter, and I can show them how — we make cheese. I learned in Israel once, and I thought, "Oh great, you know, make a curd cheese with them," and that they love to do. And we put lots of herbs in it. It was really fun.

Dan Pashman: I really liked the way you specify certain steps for adults, certain steps for kids to do, certain steps to do together.

Joan Nathan: Right.

Dan Pashman: Because I feel like that's kind of — when you cook with kids, it's kind of, you're always trying to figure out — okay, can they handle this, like maybe this is too much chopping or whatever, maybe you don't give them the giant knife? I think that simplifies the process. I think that some people who have a more sort of narrow or traditional American Jewish Eastern European perspective. As we approach Rosh Hashanah, they would be surprised at the variety of dishes in that section. There's Australian roasted carrot dip, Sephardic sweet potatoes, Moroccan apricot chicken tagine ...

Joan Nathan: Oh, it's so good!

Dan Pashman: I want to try Moroccan apricot chicken tagine. 

Joan Nathan: And I get excited when I learn a new Jewish recipe.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Joan Nathan: That's the thing ... [PATS THEIR CHEST] is my heart.

Dan Pashman: Why is it still so exciting to you? What is it about discovering a new Jewish recipe is exciting to you?

Joan Nathan: Because of my audience. I write for people that I know will use my recipes. They want something old, but they want something new. And vegetables are a really good way of doing it.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, no, totally. And, you know, with holidays in particular, I always feel like there's a sort of a tension, like you say, between the old and the new. Because there's these sort of creative side of me that's always itchy for a new idea.

Joan Nathan: Right.

Dan Pashman: And gets tired of doing the same thing over and over again. But you also want holidays, like, you know, there's certain dishes you only cook one time, one or two times a year. And you know, we all have associations between certain dishes and certain holidays from growing up. And so like, if you change the menu every year, then it doesn't have that rootedness, that feeling of a ritual or a tradition. So finding that balance between the roots and also the sort of the fun of experiencing something new is, like, something always that I'm trying to figure out.

Joan Nathan: Well, exactly. Because people have been doing it for ages that way does not mean that it's necessarily the best way.

Dan Pashman: No, a hundred percent. My wife gets annoyed. She doesn't like me tinkering with traditional — you know, just like if she likes it a certain way, do it that way, don't mess with it. She likes her roast chicken a certain way. She's not interested in, like, the hot new ingredient.

Joan Nathan: Right, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I don't like to tinker with tradition too much or tamper with tradition too much.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Joan Nathan: But I want to make it taste better.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

[LAUGHING]

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That's Joan Nathan, her new book, out now, is My Life In Recipes. And look out for her kids cookbook, coming out in November, called A Sweet Year, it’s available for preorder now.

Dan Pashman: Coming up, I head to the restaurant Agi’s Counter, to chat with chef and owner Jeremy Salamon about his interpretation of Hungarian and Jewish cuisine.  

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): Man, I'm excited to eat that grapefruit.

CLIP (JEREMY SALAMON): I'm excited that you're excited about grapefruit, because not everyone gets excited about grapefruit. [LAUGHS] 

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): I think that what you just said applies to a lot of your food. You're serving things that on the surface ... 

CLIP (JEREMY SALAMON): Yeah. 

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): ... don't necessarily have a reputation for being ...

CLIP (JEREMY SALAMON): Sure. 

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN):... the most glamorous and delicious items. 

CLIP (JEREMY SALAMON): Yeah, totally. 

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): And yet you have somehow succeeded in making them [CLIP JEREMY SALAMON): Yeah!] exciting and delicious

CLIP (JEREMY SALAMON): Well, we get a lot of Hungarians that do come in here and they're like, "What the hell is that?"

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: That's coming up, stick around. 

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+++BREAK+++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. On last week’s show, I got the inside story of the menu item that took five years, and hundreds of people to make. Of course, I’m talking about the Taco Bell Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme. This collaboration was the brainchild of two food developers, Brett Pluskalowski from Taco Bell, and Shawn Busse from Cheez-It. And when I talked with them, I quickly learned that they are not just food developers with similar sensibilities, they are kind of kindred spirits. 

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): And Brett, from a culinary perspective, what is it about a Cheez-It that works well on a culinary level with the flavors at Taco Bell?

CLIP (BRETT PLUSKALOWSKI): I think the Cheez-it is like wine. There should be, like, a lingering flavor of cheese. 

CLIP (SHAWN BUSSE): [LAUGHING]

CLIP (DAN PASHMAN): I love a Cheez-It. I don't know that anyone's ever compared it to a fine wine.

[LAUGHING] 

CLIP (SHAWN BUSSE): I'm with you Brett. I'm with you. 

Dan Pashman: But how does the Taco Bell Cheez-It collab actually happen? What went wrong along the way? And how does it hold up in the real world? We have the story and I head to Taco Bell to find out. You gotta check out this episode. It’s up now.  All right, back to the show.

Dan Pashman: As we said, Joan Nathan was instrumental in bringing Jewish food into the American mainstream. Now there’s a new guard of chefs picking up that mantle and pushing it forward. One of them is Jeremy Salamon. 

Dan Pashman: Jeremy just published his debut cookbook, called Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. He’s the chef and owner of Agi’s Counter in Brooklyn. It’s an all-day cafe and restaurant that draws inspiration from Hungarian and Jewish classics but adds some twists. 

Dan Pashman: There are caraway seeds in the chocolate chip cookies, and in the caesar salad. The Hungarian crepes or palascinta hew pretty close to tradition, but the semolina dumplings include jalapenos, which I don’t think they had in the old country. There’s an elevated tuna melt, spanakopita babka, and no shortage of pork — paprika pork sausage at brunch, seared pork and peaches at dinner. 

Dan Pashman: Agi’s Counter is named after Jeremy’s paternal grandmother, Agi, who grew up in Budapest. She was forced into the Jewish ghetto during World War II, survived the Stalinist regime, and fled the country during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. She moved to New York at first, met her husband, and started a family. They relocated to South Florida, and opened a dry cleaner there in a strip mall.  And that's where Agi met Arlene, who ran the pharmacy next door with her husband. Agi had a son, Arlene had a daughter, and the two women got to doing what Jewish women with single adult kids do — matchmaking. Those kids are now Jeremy’s parents.

Dan Pashman: Growing up in South Florida, Jeremy says dinner at Grandma Agi’s was a regular occurrence. 

Jeremy Salamon: Grandma Agi's cooking was really complicated? And I didn't really think about it on this level until like I was older, but it was very reflective of her experience, of the American experience, where she would cook Hungarian food — there was goulash, or there was paprikash, but she would also have eggplant parmesan, and she would have macaroni and cheese, and she would have Steak Diane, like, all these things literally on one table, just for one dinner.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS[ 

Jeremy Salamon: And it was such a reflection of her, I don't know what you want to call it, like, Americanization.

Dan Pashman: Jeremy’s other grandmother, Arlene, had a very different approach to food. 

Jeremy Salamon: Nana Arlene is Sephardic. So, she's a — like a Greek Jew. She grew up in the Bronx and she lived in a very, very tiny apartment with her brother and her mom and dad. They all shared one room. 

Dan Pashman: I feel like everyone who grew up in the Bronx at that time is named Arlene. 

Jeremy Salamon: You know, I'm learning that. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Yeah. They only had one name.

Jeremy Salamon: And Agi. Everyone comes into Agi's counter [Dan Pashman: Right.] and they're just like, "I have a grandmother named Agi." 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

Jeremy Salamon: And I'm like, great. I don't feel special anymore. 

Dan Pashman: No, in my wife's Hungarian side of the family, there's two Agis.

Jeremy Salamon: Sure. It's a very common name. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jeremy Salamon: So Arlene, I grew up in the Bronx and came from a very large Sephardic family. Everyone was a really good cook, even the men. Like, everyone cooked, everyone ate. And Nana Arlene was really the, like, Martha Stewart of the family. Like, all the table settings were really elaborate, and there were multiple forks and spoons, and, you know, she knew how to truss a chicken, and, like, make proper vinaigrettes.

 Dan Pashman: For each of them, what was the role of Jewish food and cooking and culture in what they were cooking and serving?

Jeremy Salamon: We celebrated Jewish holidays, I mean, the big ones, like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah, Passover and they were —  growing up, they were a big deal. You know, you always — like, when the collapsible plastic tables came out, [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] and there was like three of them, or four, like you knew it was a big deal.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: You know, we had our, like, traditions, but it wasn't something that was forced down our throats. I mean ...

Dan Pashman: So would it be fair to say that your upbringing was culturally Jewish, but not that religiously Jewish?

Jeremy Salamon: Yes, exactly. Yeah, culturally Jewish. It was about being around the family in large numbers and lots of cousins and eating excessively. That feeling that I think only like, you know, is very inherently Jewish.

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Dan Pashman: Growing up, Jeremy spent a lot of time in the kitchen with his grandmothers and at a young age, he got interested in cooking.

Jeremy Salamon: I think what made me want to do it were these women in my life, my mother and my two grandmothers. Like I can't tell my story without telling theirs and they were so influential in bringing the family together. And you know, I think as most families can be turbulent and chaotic, you know, mine was no different. These three women were incredibly crucial in always wrapping everyone back together through their food. And while that sounds — I mean, I could sound tacky, it was something that just always stuck with me, and I thought, well, maybe I can recreate that in a restaurant setting, or I could do that for other people.

Dan Pashman: But some members of Jeremy’s family had their doubts.

Jeremy Salamon: When I started getting interested in cooking, Grandma Agi, while eventually became supportive of it, she really felt like a man shouldn't cook and so, it always just kind of pushed me out. 

Dan Pashman: Push you out of the kitchen.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah, pushed me out of the kitchen. And Nana Arlene was more of the one that was like, "Okay, let's do this. I have a bunch of old cookbooks, we'll work our way through them," and that's what we did.

Dan Pashman: And you said that you started cooking with her when you were like seven. 

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And by age nine, you knew you wanted to be a chef.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah, and she got me my first kitchen job. She belonged to a country club, as all old women do in South Florida ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Jeremy Salamon: And she was at the club one day, and she went — the chef was walking by, and she said, "My grandson wants to be a chef. Can you give him a job like one day a week after school?", and he was like, "All right, great, we can use some free labor."

Dan Pashman: At age 11, Jeremy had his first restaurant internship. While this chef was happy to let young Jeremy work in the kitchen, he wasn’t about to put him in front of an industrial stove or hand him a giant knife. Instead, the chef stuck him in the freezer.

Jeremy Salamon: I had my like baby blue iPod, I would put in my headphones, they'd give me a freezer jacket, and I'd have to sit, and there were like, carts full of martini glasses, and I just had to scoop like three balls of different flavored sorbets into glasses. 

Dan Pashman: Jeremy may not have been cooking right away, but this was his first taste of a professional kitchen and he liked it. Another chef working there took Jeremy under his wing and gave him a cookbook by Charlie Trotter, one of the top chefs in the country at the time.

Jeremy Salamon: He had these big gorgeous photos that were really tall in the book and the chef blanked out all the recipes. So he took a piece of paper and he, like, put a bunch of masks on all the recipes. I had this homework, essentially, where I had to go through the book and look at the photos and identify everything that I thought was in the photo — were in the food just by looking at it, and it was kind of my first introduction to cookbooks. A chef uses a recipe, of course, but also like, it's also visually, like, that's also part of the experience and part of the lesson. So that was something that always stuck with me and I still have that book today. 

Dan Pashman: So after the country club, you worked in some other restaurants in South Florida. 

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: You eventually went to culinary school, ended up cooking in some top restaurants in New York City, including Prune and Via Carota, where these days you might see Taylor Swift among many other bold-faced names. Once you got to that point, was it the career you had dreamed it would be as a kid?

Jeremy Salamon: No. 

[LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Why not? 

Jeremy Salamon: I mean, yes and no. And when you're ... I mean, when you're ... when you're young, you're 19-years-old or 18 and working your way up through a line, you're very impressionable. You're kind of on autopilot. You're overly stimulated and just like taking all of it in. And so — but in the back of my mind, I think there was also this — like I was missing out on something else.

Dan Pashman: Jeremy wasn’t sure what that something else was, but one day, while browsing in a bookstore, he got the feeling he may have found it. It was a used copy of a cookbook called The Cuisine of Hungary, by George Lang, published back in 1990. It was very different from the glamorous Charlie Trotter cookbook he encountered as a kid. 

Jeremy Salamon: And it was, like, cream, and it had, like, very dark green, call it like, borders, and then had, like, an illustration of a jar of paprika and a huge head of cabbage.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Jeremy Salamon: And it was like, The Cuisine of Hungary. And it was a thick book, like a textbook. And I collected cookbooks. I had like, I've read so many food writings and essays and never come across anybody talking about Hungary or Eastern Europe in any format. So it was so intriguing to me I just picked it up and I purchased it and was just blown away that anyone was even talking about Hungary in this way.

Dan Pashman: I would imagine some of it was also, like, made you think of Grandma Agi.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah, having a Hungarian grandmother wasn’t anything, like — to me at least, I didn’t know that was a unique thing and so I didn't really even think to process that in the world of which I was working and how to, like, bring the two together. But when I started reading George Lang's book, it reminded me of my grandmother's journey coming from Budapest and this war-torn country and kind of her traveling through Europe, coming to America, having a life here, and her food kind of turning into this hodgepodge. And seeing that reflected in the history of Hungary and Eastern Europe that I was reading about, and it's peeling back the layers, I was finding that there's stone fruit and cherries and like different flowers, you know, were used in cooking like many, many, many years ago in Hungarian cooking. But like, it also had been influenced by Italian culture and French culture and German culture. And so there was, like, all these different ways that I was like, oh, you can take this. And that's kind of what Grandma Agi was doing, because in her Americanization of Hungarian cuisine, you know, she would wind up with the eggplant parmesan, the Steak Diane, and like, the goulash, and I think there's a bridge between those two things.

Dan Pashman: Right, in the same way that Agi had been kind of pulling from the influences around her, [Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.] so too had Hunagrians been doing that [Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.] from generations before.

Jeremy Salamon: Right. So I was like, oh, maybe Grandma Agi ... maybe she's onto something.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

Jeremy Salamon: I just gotta, you know, help her expand that.

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Dan Pashman: Picking up The Cuisine Of Hungary was a lightbulb moment for Jeremy. Soon after, he started experimenting with Hungarian flavors and dishes. In 2017, when he was in his early 20s, he started a Hungarian pop-up restaurant in New York, creating dishes like wild mushroom goulash with semolina dumplings, and langos — a Hungarian fried bread with fermented garlic honey and pecorino cheese. The next year, he went to Hungary and stayed with cousins in Budapest traveling between there and the rural countryside.

Jeremy Salamon: There was a lot of things that were really unfamiliar, like different pates and terrines and serving, like freshly cut peppers and cucumbers — essentially crudités with big slices of this brown bread and butter. Like there was this refined but also simplicity to the food. A lot of the younger generation pushing it forward, which was really exciting to see as well.

Dan Pashman: It wasn’t just the food, but the entire culture of dining and restaurants that sparked something for him.

Jeremy Salamon: One of the things that stood out with me and that I loved to do as, like, as often as I could while I was In Hungary was go to these grand Eastern European cafes, which were so ornate and beautiful and had these massive chandeliers, but people were just reading a book and like enjoying a cup of coffee and you could go there breakfast, lunch or dinner. In the back of my mind, I was like, "How can we bring that into the 21st century in America?", like what's a way that, like, we could make that a little smaller, keep the history of it intact but push it forward.

Dan Pashman: Jeremy came back to New York and got a job as Executive Chef at The Eddy, a buzzy American restaurant. The owner suggested that Jeremy develop some modern Hungarian dishes from his pop-up for the restaurant. Those dishes attracted Hungarian diners, who were eager for a taste of home. 

Jeremy Salamon: I remember I did put a couple dishes on the menu and there was an elderly woman that came in, who was Hungarian, and she stood up in the middle of her meal, she said, "I demand to speak to the chef," [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] and I came out of the kitchen, and it was like out of a movie ...

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: And it had never happened, and I was like, "Hi, how can I help you?" And she just said, "This is disgraceful. You have — you know, you've disgraced your grandmother, and your culture, and like, how ... What have you ...", and I just said, like, "I can't help you. I don't know how to help you. I don't know what to do."

Dan Pashman: Do you remember the exact dish that caused this woman to get so upset?

Jeremy Salamon: It might have been the pork shank goulash and I think that was a learning lesson for me as a chef in that you're not going to please everybody and you just have to be okay with that. And to this day, we have people that come into Agi’s that I think they envision this experience — if they've never dined here before, I think they're like, I'm going to come in and re-experience my childhood and have these very traditional dishes. And when they set that up in their head, that expectation, and it doesn't meet that, it sours their entire experience.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: I can't control that for you.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Jeremy Salamon: And, you know, and it's like ... It's, yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Also, that's not what you as a chef are interested in doing.

Jeremy Salamon: Right.

Dan Pashman: In 2021, Jeremy struck out on his own, and opened Agi’s Counter. In addition to the menu items I mentioned, it also exclusively features Hungarian wines, which Jeremy says are vastly underappreciated. They have a huge range, from floral and delicate to smoky and volcanic. Agi’s Counter took influences from Hungarian coffee house culture, from the young modern Hungarian chefs Jeremy met on his travels, and from his own riffs on Hungarian food that he'd been developing over the past few years.

Jeremy Salamon: I wanted to present it in a way where, like, it could become part of your everyday commute to work, or your everyday brunch with your family, or your, like, go-to date night spot. I wanted it to become something where people weren't afraid of pronouncing it, the food, or tasting it. And now we have people come three years in that are just like, "I'll have two Pagachas, one Palachinta ..."

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: You know, that to me says that like, okay, I did it. Like, I did it, we did it. We were successful in, like, integrating ourselves in a way where it felt natural and we weren't forcing it down people's throat.

Dan Pashman: Have Grandma Agi or Nana Arlene been here to Agi's Counter?

Jeremy Salamon: Nana Arlene has. Grandma Agi, we toured her around on FaceTime ...

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Okay.

Jeremy Salamon: When we first opened, but she has dementia now, so it's kind of really fully set in, so ... But she knows that there is a restaurant in her name, that was, like, kind of one of the last, like, big things that she got to experience was that her grandson finally opened his restaurant, so ...

Dan Pashman: And what does Nana Arlene think?

Jeremy Salamon: Oh, she tells everybody.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Jeremy Salamon: She’ll go to a bookstore ... I mean, she’ll go to get her gas and she'll, like, tell the guy ... I mean, any chance that this woman gets. She is the Yenta, you know what I mean?

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: So ...

Dan Pashman: I’ll bet everyone at the club in Boca knows. 

Jeremy Salamon: Literally, I’ve had people come from Boca ... and they were like, [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHING] "Oh, your grandmother's friend who's a friend of a friend told me ..." I mean, and I'm like, that's insane, I mean, she's doing — I mean, I love Carly, our publicist, but she might have, but like, the Yenta may be doing more work than our publicist.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]

Jeremy Salamon: So, no. So yeah, that's — she's also very proud.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: In 2022, Agi’s Counter made Bon Appetit's Best Restaurants List. In 2023, it scored a Michelin Bib Gourmand award. And this year, Jeremy was nominated for a James Beard Award. Now, he has a new cookbook out, called Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. In the book, Jeremy has traditional Hungarian dishes, like sour cherry soup, and his own reinventions, like one with nokedli — which are small, dense dumplings. They're usually used to soak up goulash gravy or add heft to soups. But Jeremy does nokedli with cacio e pepe. He’s also got recipes in there for some of the big hits at Agi’s Counter, including the tuna melt and caraway Caesar salad. And there’s one classic Hungarian dish that he presents two ways. He has a pretty traditional chicken paprikash, which is chicken braised with lots of paprika. And then he has his own spin on it, what he calls his "Unfaithful Roast Chicken".  

Jeremy Salamon: The chicken paprikash, when you serve it, like ... It's comfort food, but it can look very like, blase, whereas I wanted something that you could serve at a table and be like a wow piece, which wound up being the cover. This "Unfaithful Roast Chicken" is on the cover of the cookbook, but it is a roast chicken that has this like — a very, like, lovely acidic paprika vinaigrette that gets smothered on top of it afterwards with lots of dill and crushed flaky salt and it's just ... It's simple but it ... I think it also really makes a statement.

Dan Pashman: In this cookbook, Jeremy, you have separate chapters, one for cakes and torts ...

Jeremy Salamon: Mm-hmm.

Dan Pashman: And one for desserts.

Jeremy Salamon: Yes.

Dan Pashman: And some people think cakes are desserts, Jeremy.

Jeremy Salamon: Oh, no, no, that's a ... That's a whole other department. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] So, tell me specifically, like, why was it important to you to have these two separate chapters in the book? Cakes and torts and desserts.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah. I remember the conversation that I had to have with my publisher about that and they're like, "Why are you doing two separate chapters?" And I was like, "Let me give you the history on Eastern European pastry and desserts and what the difference is between all these things." And cakes and torts, I know this sounds crazy, but they're — I mean, in Hungary, they can be considered a mid-day snack. And that is like, you go to the coffee house, you have your cup of coffee, it's a whole production, and you have your slice of cake.

Jeremy Salamon: That could be in the middle of the day at like 1, 2 P.M. And then after your dinner at night, you'll have your proper dessert. And so, I wanted to make sure that was distinct in the book and that there also are just so many Hungarian desserts. Like their pastries are extravagant and layered and things that — you don't see it, because I think we get so many Italian desserts and French desserts. Hungarian desserts are so unique to me that I really wanted to explore it, but also not make a complete book dedicated to pastry because I'm not a pastry chef.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Jeremy Salamon: I think I'm a good baker, but I wanted a way to explore that and show home cooks that they could do it, too.

Dan Pashman: The subtitle of Jermey's cookbook is Hungarian and Jewish classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. I asked him, with this book and with Agi’s, it’s clear what his interpretation of Hungarian food is but how Jewish do you think your cooking is? 

Jeremy Salamon: The Jewish aspect of it was never something I actively thought of. At Agi's, it kind of just naturally, I think, to me at least, which is very personal, it feels like it would at home, where I know it's — like, it is Jewish. This food is, to me, in many ways, it is Jewish. But, there's also — it's like not so maybe obvious to the average Joe that isn't, you know? I don't know. I guess it's complicated, as Judaism is.

[LAUGHING]

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Right. In the last ten months or so, there’s been an increase in antisemitic attacks [Jeremy Salamon: Mm-hmm.] and issues in America. I think that a lot of Jews have been having conversations in America about sort of, what is our place here, where does it all mean.

Jeremy Salamon: Mm-hmm.

Dan Pashman: I'm curious how all of this has affected how you think about your Jewish identity and also your work.

Jeremy Salamon: In my mind, I relate it to — I've been asked what it's like to be a queer chef in this very, like, straight male-dominated industry — there's a correlation here, I promise — and I am conscious of it. It's not something that I actively think about. What's really important to me and something that my grandmother had, you know, and my grandfather had expressed to me at one point about being Jewish is that you're doing your part by just existing with this business. Like, you're doing your part by being an integral part of people's lives. It's just you're just purely existing and being you is something that can change so many things and in a tiny way, but it makes an impact. And so I feel the same way about being Jewish. It's just I'm existing as a Jewish queer restaurant owner in Crown Heights and that's who I am. I know that to be true in my gut. It's in my food but it may not be super obvious, but just by existing, I'm playing my part. I'm doing what I need to do for my community, if that makes sense.

Dan Pashman: It totally makes sense.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: I mean ... Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I have sort of felt in recent months is like, oh, I should just talk more about being Jewish.

Jeremy Salamon: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: You know?

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: And just be more visibly Jewish.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Maybe in the past I might've done something Jewish and not put it on social media ...

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Or not talked about it on the podcast.

Jeremy Salamon: Mm-hmm.

Dan Pashman: I think in the past, I was content to be existing and now I'm kind of like well maybe I should put a little more effort into making sure other people know that I'm here.

Jeremy Salamon: Yeah, and I think there's ... Right, and I'm doing that by putting my food out. And I mean, obviously, I'm putting out a cookbook that has the word Jewish on the cover, but I know that I'm doing my part by just being who I am and expressing that to the community through my food.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s Jeremy Salamon, his restaurant in Brooklyn is Agi’s Counter and his new cookbook is Second Generation: Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table. It’s available now wherever books are sold. Also, Jeremy just announced that he’s opening a second restaurant in Brooklyn. This one in Red Hook, it’ll be called Pitt’s and it’s scheduled to open next month.

Dan Pashman: Finally, some exciting news! We are giving away a copy of Joan Nathan’s book My Life In Recipes, and Jeremy Salamon’s book Second Generation. To enter to win a copy, all you have to do is sign up for our newsletter by October 18th. If you are already signed up, then you are already entered into this and all of our giveaways! So get on the list. If you don't win this time, you might win next time. Plus, we'll drop you an email once in a while with cool links, a heads up when my pasta goes on sale, and lots of useful stuff. This contest is open to U.S. addresses only. Sign up now at sporkful.com/newsletter.  

Dan Pashman: Next week, as National Pasta Month kicks off, I’ll give you an update on cascatelli, including an incredible cascatelli experience I had this summer!

Dan Pashman: While you're waiting for that one, check out last week’s show, about the inside story of the collaboration between Taco Bell and Cheez-It. After five years of development, and hundreds of people working behind the scenes, Taco Bell announced their Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme and the Big Cheez-It Tostada. But how did people really feel about it? I talk to the people who invented it, and head to Taco Bell to try it myself. That’s up now. And finally, to those of you celebrating the Jewish holidays in the next couple weeks, happy new year!

Dan Pashman: And hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful.