Alexis Nikole Nelson on the Joy and Politics of Foraging

Alexis Nikole Nelson defines foraging as "the act of properly identifying and then gathering and then utilizing wild plants, nuts, seeds, fruits, fungi, any of the notan animal neighbors of ours." She further explains that it involves knowing their uses, whether for sustenance or medicinal purposes.

Nelson notes the varied reasons individuals engage in foraging, from those solely seeking food to others interested in the medicinal properties of wild resources, indicating a broad spectrum of practices within the foraging community.

Nelson's journey into foraging began in Cincinnati, Ohio, influenced by her mother, an avid gardener. She recounts spending her mother's time off in the garden, constantly asking questions about the plants. This curiosity led her mother to teach her about their various uses, including those of intentional plantings and unexpected 'weeds.'

At the age of five, discovering that edible food could be found in her own lawn, without being deliberately planted, was a "mind-blowing" experience for Nelson. This early exposure to the hidden edible world around her ignited a lifelong passion, leading her to store away knowledge about new plants whenever taught by her mother, teachers, or summer camp counselors.

Nelson's new book, "Happy Snacking, Don't Die," aims to bridge the gap between academic botanical study and practical culinary experimentation. Growing up at the intersection of her mother's love for plants and her accomplished chef father's passion for cooking, Nelson sought to combine these two worlds.

Nelson hoped the book would serve as an approachable guide for beginners, guiding them step by step through the foraging process. The book includes recipes that range from very easy dishes, such as quick pickled purslane, to more involved ones like rose water baklava, so readers at different skill levels can use it.

Nelson believes the time is right for her book because of a societal "lack of connection to nature" that became apparent during the early days of the pandemic. She observes that modern society is "extremely disconnected from our food systems," where food passes through "tens, sometimes hundreds of hands" before reaching consumers, fostering a sense of detachment.

The increasing number of food recalls in the United States highlights the "fragile" nature of the current food system. Nelson points out that even minor reductions in oversight can lead to widespread safety issues, forcing consumers to constantly check recall lists.

Foraging, while not a complete solution to these systemic issues, offers a powerful alternative. Nelson emphasizes the "really good feeling" of being the entire "footprint of a piece of food"—finding, gathering, taking home, and preparing it. This process restores a sense of agency and connection that is often lost in modern life, despite perceived online connectivity.

For those new to foraging, Nelson advises: "don't be afraid to start small." She believes that simply knowing how to identify one plant and eagerly anticipating its season each year is enough to qualify someone as a forager. This approach counters the intimidation many feel when seeing experienced foragers online.

Nelson gives the example of friends who make lilac sugar with their children during lilac season, calling them foragers. She emphasizes that mastering every species isn't necessary; rather, the key is to "just have to be curious about knowing some things and stay curious."

She also notes that one of the hardest parts of foraging isn't finding food, but learning to 'see.' This involves shifting one's mindset from daily computer use to a more grounded awareness, similar to preparing for outdoor hobbies like jogging or rock climbing. Nelson uses a "noticing game" during plant walks, where participants pause to observe their surroundings and let plants 'find' them, fostering a deeper connection to their immediate environment.

Nelson firmly believes that foraging profoundly changes one's relationship with their living environment. She states that "foraging changes the way that you feel about where you live, how you move through the places that you live." Just as knowing human neighbors creates a sense of community, knowing one's "plant neighbors and your animal neighbors feels really good, too."

This enhanced connection to local flora and fauna encourages people to take better care of their surroundings. Nelson highlights that foraging helps individuals realize that even in urban centers, they are part of an active ecosystem. She suggests that issues of overconsumption in foraging often arise when "capitalism is also being brought into foraging," leading individuals to take more than their household needs to profit, unlike sustainable personal foraging.

Nelson advises new foragers to "never take the first of what you see" to ensure the plant or fungi exists in more than one area. She explains that taking the only specimen could eradicate it from that location. Her personal rule is to make her foraging efforts "even a little bit noticeable" to maintain the integrity of the ecosystem.

She continuously checks her impact, zooming out to assess if the area looks undisturbed. Nelson emphasizes that many indigenous practices globally also advocate for similar restraint during harvesting. Her guiding principle is to "take so little that nobody notices," even if it means covering more ground. This approach underscores the idea that no individual is more important than the ecosystem, serving as a "very good moderator" for foraging behavior.

Nelson's primary safety rule for foraging is absolute certainty: "I don't put anything into my mouth unless I'm 100% sure of what it is." If there's any doubt, she advises against consumption, suggesting instead to take a sample home for further research and cross-referencing with books.

She stresses that foraging "is not a race," encouraging people to slow down and ensure complete comfort with their harvest. It's crucial to pause and research potential "dangerous lookalikes," citing the example of poisonous lily of the valley being frequently mistaken for ramps, which has led to people getting sick.

Nelson reminds foragers that "there's always going to be another season to try something," reinforcing the importance of patience and caution over rushing to consume wild edibles.

When considering the safety of a foraging location, Nelson advises caution regarding herbicides and pesticides in personal yards. However, she clarifies that concerns about long-term chemical residue can be overestimated. For instance, glyphosate, a common herbicide, "only has a halflife of 30 days in soil with microbes," meaning it is "completely broken down in the soil" by day 60. This knowledge can prevent undue fear that might deter people from foraging altogether.

Conversely, some locations are definitively unsafe. Nelson labels golf courses as a "no" due to their extensive chemical upkeep to maintain pristine grass. She also warns against foraging at Superfund sites, even those repurposed as public parks, due to historical contamination. For foraging near freshwater, it's crucial to monitor for upstream chemical spills using resources like the EPA's reported spills website.

Nelson recommends certain apps, while cautioning against relying on them as the sole authority for eating decisions. She suggests iNaturalist, an app for identifying plants, fungi, and animals. She values it for two main reasons: it allows user sightings to contribute to citizen science projects by universities and research institutions, and experts can verify sightings, upgrading them to 'research grade' or providing feedback.

She highlights iNaturalist's explore map feature, which lets users see what others in their area have found, fostering a sense of community and local discovery. Nelson also mentions the 'Foraged' app, a paid resource that provides regional seasonal data, further aiding foragers in their quest for wild edibles. She notes that smartphones have replaced the arduous library research process of the past, streamlining the learning curve for new foragers.

Nelson criticizes the consolidation of agriculture into large farm conglomerates, observing that "the bigger some of these farm conglomerates get, the easier it is for things to fall through the cracks." She says that when things do fall through the cracks, people end up getting salmonella, cyclospora, or E. coli, and she frames this as a consequence of how concentrated the food system has become. Her point is that the scale that makes the industry efficient also makes contamination problems harder to catch and more widespread when they occur.

She mourns the loss of smaller, local food systems and cultural practices, such as the decline of poke salad canning, which was once culturally significant in the American South. Nelson explains that small canneries cannot compete with massive companies that operate on a "numbers game," selling goods for very little money.

By distancing ourselves from wild food, Nelson believes society has also distanced itself from "roots of American food culture and a lot of original American land values." She recalls that early European settlers, particularly the British, were dismayed that poor people couldn't access free, healthy food on land belonging to royalty, leading to the concept of "the commons" where non-landowners could forage.

Nelson reveals that foraging laws in the American South, particularly after the emancipation of enslaved people in the mid-1860s, were deliberately shifted to control newly freed Black populations. These individuals, having learned self-sustenance through foraging, hunting, and fishing while enslaved, were reluctant to return to exploitative sharecropping on former plantations.

In response, wealthy plantation owners re-engineered trespass laws, transforming them from civil offenses into criminal acts. This prevented formerly enslaved people from accessing free food on land they no longer worked, forcing them back into a dependent labor system. Nelson highlights that specific quotes from town hall meetings exist, detailing the motivations behind these legal changes.

Nelson argues that policies initially targeting Black populations often create broader societal barriers. She asserts that "things that started as a race thing almost always end up affecting everybody because racism and classism are like this." This was evident when foraging restrictions, initially aimed at controlling newly freed Black individuals, soon impacted poor white workers and Indigenous people who also relied on public lands for sustenance.

These laws effectively "severed us from this knowledge base" crucial to American culture and land values, which, ironically, was once meant to be a "commons" accessible to all. Nelson points out that even today, being a forager is significantly easier for wealthy landowners. She sees reconnecting with seasonal wild foods as an act of "reclamation work," especially in the United States, given this historical context.

Nelson clarifies that she doesn't expect everyone to become an avid forager overnight, nor does she desire it, emphasizing "safety first." Instead, she hopes her work encourages individuals to "pause for a second" and make more mindful food choices. This could mean opting to buy vegetables from a farmers market on the weekend instead of a large chain supermarket, which supports the community and often has a smaller environmental footprint.

Foraging, she believes, makes people appreciate the labor involved in food production, including the often-overlooked and sometimes "mistreated labor" on "giant industrialsized farms." Nelson, who is vegan, prefers to preserve seasonal fruits herself rather than relying on systems that exploit labor for year-round availability of certain foods.

Ultimately, Nelson aims to empower people with information about food access, rather than dictate their choices. She wants them to be "better informed so they can make the best decisions for them," reinforcing her role as a "weird cousin" providing knowledge, not a parental figure imposing rules.

When asked about her favorite wild recipe, Nelson recalled a beloved childhood dish: the crab cakes served at Lindsies, a small family-owned restaurant on the drive down to Cape Cod. Before she became vegan, she was obsessed with them, and it was a running joke in her family that everyone knew what she would order. Today she can no longer eat them, and the restaurant closed shortly after the initial pandemic shutdowns, a loss that makes her feel especially sad for the community it served.

To recreate this cherished memory while adhering to her vegan diet, Nelson "tried to reconstruct from memory using chicken of the woods in place of crab meat their crab cakes for the book." She noted the challenge of seasonal availability for ingredients like chicken of the woods mushrooms, which are not always accessible.

Addressing the question of edible "yard weeds" or invasive plants with poor public relations, Nelson points to the Bradford pear. This tree is an invasive species in Ohio and surrounding states, known for its unpleasant spring odor, structural weakness, and causing significant storm damage.

Despite its negative reputation, Nelson found a surprising culinary use for its small pears. She successfully made "the best perry I've ever made" (pear cider) from them. However, she clarifies that this is not a "redemption story" for the tree, but rather "just a way to deal with a very active invasive in my area."

Nelson strongly advises against planting Bradford pears, noting it is now illegal in Ohio and several neighboring states. Her use of the fruit is a practical approach to managing an invasive species, akin to "turning lemons into lemonade," rather than an endorsement of the plant itself.