Alexis Nikole Nelson (born May 26, 1992) is an American

forager A forager is a person who collects edible plants or fungi for consumption. Urban foragers may collect in city parks, private lands, and sidewalks. Urban foraging has gained in popularity in the 21st century, as people share their knowledge, experi ...

, cook, and

internet personality An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social m ...

. She maintains the

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

account alexisnikole and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

page blackforager, where she posts videos of her foraging finds along with cooking techniques and historical information. She currently lives in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. In 2022, Nelson won the inaugural

James Beard Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

for Best Social Media Account.

Early life and education

Alexis Nikole Nelson was born on May 26, 1992, and grew up in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. Her mother first showed her how to forage at the age of five by introducing her to onion grass. She attended the New School Montessori and

Walnut Hills High School , streetaddress = 3250 Victory Parkway , city = Cincinnati , state = Ohio , zipcode = 45207 , country = United States , coordinates = , type ...

, from which she graduated in 2010. She graduated from the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

in 2015 with degrees in environmental science and theatre.

Career

Alexis posts videos of her foraging finds on social media accounts. Her videos are informal, playful, and humorous, despite a long experience and encyclopedic knowledge of foraging. Since 2019, she has maintained the

account "blackforager", and created the

page "alexisnikole" in 2020. Nelson's posts concern such topics as the indigenous roots of foraging in America, the history of American foraging laws, and sustainable ways for her viewers to include wild plants and mushrooms in their diets, with a focus on

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Di ...

recipes. In most of her videos, she documents ingredients that she finds in the wild and then turns them into dishes using her own or adapted recipes. Her popularity grew in 2021, from under 500,000 TikTok followers early that year to 3.3 million by January 2022. Her efforts were successful enough that she left her office job in September 2021 to focus on her foraging work full-time. National media attention that year included ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and ''

Bon Appétit ''Bon Appétit'' is a monthly American food and entertaining magazine, that typically contains recipes, entertaining ideas, restaurant recommendations, and wine reviews. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered at the One World Trade Center i ...

'' articles, as well as segments on ''

The Kelly Clarkson Show ''The Kelly Clarkson Show'' is an American daytime television variety talk show hosted by American singer Kelly Clarkson. It is produced and distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and features Clarkson interviewing celebrities and segm ...

'' and ''

The Drew Barrymore Show ''The Drew Barrymore Show'' (often shortened to ''Drew'') is a first-run syndicated American talk show hosted by actress Drew Barrymore. The show is distributed by CBS Media Ventures and debuted on September 14, 2020. In April 2022, the show w ...

''. She was also added to the ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 list that year. In April 2022, Alexis attended the 2022

TED conference TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, the first since the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

began. At the conference, she gave a TED Talk about her foraging work, and cooked sweet-and-salty seaweed chips using Vancouver-foraged bull kelp. In June 2022, she won the

for social media influence. Her accounts at the time had a cumulative 4.8 million followers. Nelson is currently working on a cookbook, to be published by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

in 2023.

Influences

Nelson attributes her interest in foraging to both natural inclination and her family's African and indigenous heritage.

Personal life

Nelson lives in

, with a partner and several pets. She practices a

diet.

References

External links