Thalia Ho's Nature-Inspired Palate
Thalia Ho comes from a generation of European bakers.
She is the author, baker and founder of the blog, Butter & Brioche. And the past few years have seen her on the move. In 2016, Thalia won both Editor’s and Reader’s Choice in SAVEUR Magazine’s Blog Awards for “The Best Baking and Sweet’s Blog" and written for numerous publications. She has done work for radio, television, and film, as in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled (2017). Her debut cookbook, Wild Sweetness, was published by Harper Design in 2021. We connected with Thalia, who lives in Australia, between her travels to talk a bit about seasons, how we stay in touch with the wildness within ourselves, and the journey of writing her first cookbook.
What is a specific memory you have in which you realized “wildness” is something bigger than yourself?
I’ve always felt that it was more than me but never really understood the power until I began the journey of Wild Sweetness, released it into the world, and saw how people were relating to it. It’s so much bigger than all of us combined. There’s something to be said about wildness, about using it to understand ourselves, our own inner and outer landscapes that need nourishing, and food is the best way to do that. You can literally change your entire composition with a mouthful. It’s the strongest act of creation I know.
Are there particular nature areas where you have felt nurtured, held, humbled, or even terrified and/or in awe? What happened in those precious moments?
In the woods. I write that as a child I got lost there once, and if I close my eyes tight, those emotions start to feel the same. I like the uncertainty of it, that the path isn’t always clear, the snap-of-a-twig-sounds that contrast against the silence, the envelopment – that you’re very much at the mercy to the whim of it all. Little Red Riding Hood stayed with us for a reason. There’s something to be gained from the woods, even if it doesn’t start out kind.
There’s a resurgence toward “rewilding.” How does rewilding show up for you or within you?
I believe that re-wilding is about returning to yourself. Who am I, away from it all? It’s escapism. But not escapism from something, it’s escapism to something. I go into the wild to come back to me. The dissociation of modern life is making this harder. All I want is a part of the world to call my own, to create from, to live in accordance with my own desire, freely. I’m hearing that loud now, and it’s not just coming from inside me. Food is a way to experience that.
What are some of your favorite things about spring?
The transition between Winter and Spring is my favourite of the year. The awakening is slow at first and then in split-second things shock to life. I’m always in awe with how nature just knows what to do, and does it, unquestionably. Music, like the wild, is very formative for me. Kendrick Lamar has a line that goes something like “if I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?” I see a lot in that because mostly the Spring is re-birth. I was born in it, and I find myself going through tremendous change just as the earth does.
What is one thing about being in nature that you hope other people will consider?
That the seasons bleed. I write in the book that they aren’t faithful, meaning, they don’t just start, or conversely, end on a given date. This year, we’ve seen unprecedented conditions and changes to our terrain. The summer was rough and slow, and agonized well into mid-autumn. I’m still seeing warm-weather-fruits like plums, cherries and berries, when usually, I’d be seeing quince and figs. The cold has just started to arrive, and thankfully, because we need it. I think it’s important to not force the hand of nature, and work with what we’ve got when it’s given to us.
In your book, Wild Sweetness, you take us through six seasons and the flavors that inspire them. What are a couple of your personal favorite recipes in the cookbook?
I wrote Wild Sweetness with the belief that there are more six seasons, than four, and took parts that I think define each, like florals in spring, or smoke in winter, to create the chapters. But those shift, and as a result, so too does my attraction towards certain recipes. Today, my palate is less inclined to the dustiness of rose but at the time of writing it was all I wanted, and I much prefer tartness now than the rich-buttery tones that I once craved. I always come back to the zest-filled Amaretti, gritty Buckwheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and Orange Blossom Crème Caramel which reminds me of New Year’s Eve in Paris. The Frangipane Tart is a classic that I riff on often, and I love the Pavé, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to make them the same, again. That’s what I love most about the recipes, and for me the point of them – they’re personal, they invite experimentation, they want to meet you where you’re at.
Tell me a little bit about the journey of the book and how it came about from your blog, Butter and Brioche. Did you find yourself at the mercy of the seasons or seasonality when making Wild Sweetness?
The book was a natural progression from Butter and Brioche, which started as a sweet journal when I was nineteen. Like the blog, I wrote, photographed, styled and tested it all myself, and it was an enduring but rewarding and fluid process. I had a due date, but there was no schedule or team – which is how I wanted it, an expression of all of me, as I was, then. That sole reliance meant I could unfold with what I was presented with at the time, truly, Wild Sweetness.
The part I had to surrender to the most was shooting, so much of that was dependant on nature. I travelled a lot to get the shot and worked only with what was available. If a photograph wasn’t communicating how I envisioned it, I would re-shoot, and then re-shoot again, just to be sure. Nature doesn’t like to look the same twice – the fog that rolled over the moor would be drunk one morning, fast the next, or a non-event. I can’t force that. And it was the same with produce, too. I love red currants but they weren’t around that year, so the recipes using them were either cut or re-worked for another fruit.
Do you have any advice for people who want to develop a “nature-inspired” palate: a palate that brings in nature’s flavors in their most naked forms rather than living within the same synthetic flavors?
I’m still learning the answer to this and forever will be learning it, I think. So much of it is internal. I was raised to keep my eyes open, be still, be observant, be silent, and led – only then can you respond. Your unique surroundings are a good place to start, and then being curious and exploitative with that. Hunger has a lot to do with it, too. I like being hungry for what I don’t know.
What’s next for you?
I’m working, silently. I started Wild at twenty-two, and I don’t see the same as I did then. This next one is another chapter to the story.
