I’m Eva Thorne, founder of The Garden of Eva.

I was born and raised in New York City, but my understanding of food began much farther south — in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where my mother, Tina, was raised on a farm outside Roanoke. Although she eventually moved north, Southern foodways remained central to our family life. Preservation was not a hobby in our home; it was a language of memory, seasonality, and care.

Our pantry was filled with jars of chow chow, pickled pole beans, pickled watermelon rind, brandied pears, Damson plum jam, relishes, and seasonal fruits put up for later use.

I grew up learning that preserves were more than condiments. They were ways of carrying a place, a season, and a history forward.

Those early experiences shaped how I think about food today.

Over time, my interest in preservation expanded beyond the American South and into the wider world. Travel exposed me to the extraordinary preservation cultures of Morocco, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — places where acid, salt, smoke, fermentation, sweetness, and spice are used not simply for flavour, but to preserve abundance, create resilience, and express identity.

The vision for The Garden of Eva crystallised unexpectedly in a supermarket car park in Boston. I was waiting for a pan-Asian market to open so I could buy unwaxed lemons for a Moroccan tagine. Standing there, memories of my childhood kitchen collided with everything I had experienced abroad. I suddenly understood that the Southern pantry was not isolated at all. It belonged to a much larger global conversation about preservation, terroir, and flavour.

That moment planted the seed for The Garden of Eva.

Today, The Garden of Eva explores the preservation intelligence of the diverse regions of the US South. Our preserves are inspired by regional Southern traditions — from sorghum syrup and chow chow to pepper vinegar and fruit preserves — while recognising the deep connections these foods share with preservation cultures around the world.

We believe preserves are more than accompaniments. They are edible archives of climate, migration, memory, and craft.

This is only the beginning.