Columbus resident Alexis Nelson, the 'Black Forager,' takes Jimmy Kimmel foraging in LA
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Hot off winning a James Beard Award, Columbus resident Alexis Nelson has added to her success by making an appearance on the popular late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Better known by her legions of fans as the "Black Forager," Nelson was the focus of a segment that aired Tuesday. In the segment, Nelson leads Kimmel and his sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez on a foraging tour in what Nelson said were "the wilds of just outside of Los Angeles."
Black mustard, California sage brush, galium, miner's lettuce, oxalis, and Italian thistle, were among the plants the trio ate and harvested. Also mallow plants, which according to Nelson are closely related to the plant that marshmallows are made from.
"There's your protein for the morning. You don't need your shakes," Nelson said while giving what she called cheese wheel seeds to Kimmel and Guillermo.
In addition, Nelson had Kimmel and Guillermo eat lerp sugar, which Nelson described as bug poop. "Why doesn't everyone poop out sugar? Kimmel asked. "Wouldn't that make the world a much better place?"
Guillermo came prepared for the foraging trip, at one point pulling Tapatio hot sauce from his pack. He also apparently brought alcohol with him, saying the canteens he was wearing were filled with tequila and margarita mix.
With more than 1 million followers on Instagram and 4.2 million followers on TikTok, Nelson is well-known for her videos on all things food and foraging.
In July 2022, she won a James Beard Award, one of the top honors for those involved in promoting America's food culture, for her social media account. The award was for her social media account, an honor that recognizes a single food-related post, or compilation of up to three posts, that represents the intention of the account.
In winning the award, Nelson joined other James Beard Award winners from Columbus, including Kitchn website editor-in-chief and cookbook author Faith Durand, and Molly O'Neill, the former New York Times food columnist who died in 2019.
Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news.
mtrombly@dispatch.com
@monroetrombly
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Alexis Nelson, the 'Black Forager,' takes Jimmy Kimmel foraging in LA
