“There are no worthless herbs - only the lack of knowledge.” - Avicenna.

The seeds of Sarson Suppers were sown long before Lydia was a Sarson and, like plants, ideas need cultivation and care to grow.

Lydia Sarson has always had a love for kitchen creations.  Her Pop-Pop, Malcolm, was a baker and chef, acting as a cook with the Merchant Marines and owning a few local country inns.  Though Pop-Pop was retired by the time Lydia came around, you still couldn’t get him out of the kitchen.  Her earliest memories include baking sticky buns, peanut butter buns, and soft pretzels with him in his garage.  

When she was five, Grandma and Pop-Pop moved to Florida, but they spent their summers at Lydia’s parents’ house, and she continued to learn by watching and doing.

On her parent’s small farm, Lydia and her sister, Ellyn, were responsible for helping their mother in the large garden.  From hours spent sitting on their porch swing shelling beans to braving the wild raspberry bushes lining their property, Lydia’s love for the gifts of Mother Nature continued to grow as she got older. 

In her college years, Lydia was known to make homemade chicken soup for sick friends and whip up homemade pizzas for the 3am after-party.  She was always calling Pop-Pop for tips, advice, and “how-to’s”.  It was around this same time that she met her then-future husband, Michael, whose equal love of cooking quickly bonded the pair.

In 2007, Michael was ready for a career change and decided to go to culinary school.  Lydia studied right along with him, helping create flashcards, developing quizzes, and practicing new techniques.  They began participating in at-home “Chopped” challenges and created new recipes together.  Instead of purchasing Christmas gifts for friends and family, they made gift baskets filled with homemade crackers and mustards, pickled vegetables, and both dried and fresh sausages. Never ones to shy away from the strange and unknown, weekends were spent working with ingredients such as pigs feet, cow tongue, and baby octopus.

Then, along came Instagram and a hashtag was born.  #sarsonsuppers was a way for Lydia to not just share what she was doing in the kitchen with friends and family, but a way to preserve her kitchen creations.  Cooking can be an art form of the purest and most fleeting variety.  Using fresh and perishable ingredients as a medium, paired with carefully thought out processes and experimental techniques, creates a moment of time which can only be preserved through photos and documentation. Instagram was the perfect platform.

In the years since Lydia finally became a Sarson, the seeds of Sarson Suppers have bloomed into something greater and more expansive than she ever imagined.

In March 2020, Covid-19 arrived on the scene, causing global devastation and directly impacting the Sarson family.  Lydia was furloughed and suddenly had more time on her hands than ever before.  Into the kitchen she went, making all the “quarantine fads”  such as sourdough bread and dalagona coffee, plus so much more.  She started to do more research into herbalism, particularly fascinated by the history and medicinal properties of our everyday garden herbs.  Like many who were forced into quarantine, an innate desire to return “back to basics” grew, and she listened.  

It wasn’t long before Lydia wanted to apply her research in the kitchen, where Michael decided to join her.  They began creating spice mixes, tea blends, and infused oils and vinegars using familiar herbs whose medicinal properties were more unknown.  Lydia’s research allowed her to see a pattern of properties, which when used properly, have the ability to help people create and maintain a healthier lifestyle on a micronutrient level.  It is well-known that eating fruits and vegetables has a positive macronutrient effect on one’s diet.  But did you know that adding more herbs into your everyday cooking has proven benefits to not just your physical health, but your mental health as well?  When we know how and why our ancestors used ingredients like parsley and lavender, we are able to more mindfully boost our overall wellness through our daily actions in the kitchen. 

This is not to say that consuming more basil, for example, will fully resolve high blood pressure issues.  However, by intentionally adding more nutritiously dense herbs to our food, we are providing our bodies with the vitamins needed to help balance our systems.  Of course, doctors should be consulted with any questions pertaining to herbs and medical conditions, but it is important to be aware that a fully balanced diet includes the everyday herbs we often overlook. 

So, thank you for joining Lydia on this journey of culinary herbal awareness.  Recipes will be added to the website and herbal educational videos will be added to her YouTube channel weekly, so please keep checking back.  

We would love to hear from you! Please feel free to submit any questions or requests through our contact form.  Once our product line is ready, you will be the first to know!  Sarson Suppers is ever-evolving; we are glad you are along for the ride. And always remember, “There are no worthless herbs - only the lack of knowledge.” - Avicenna.