Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio
Sep 30, 2026 · 35 min · 14 segments
In this special episode, we’re releasing an extended cut of our interview with Alexis Nikole Nelson. She tells us about the foraged ingredients you won’t find at your grocery store (like mugwort and…
Christopher KimballHostUm, so historically, foraging was done because people had to forage, obviously, right?
You forage not necessarily 'cause you have to, you, you forage 'cause you love to.
Well, you know, some of my foraging, and I feel like my deep dive into foraging in adulthood, did come a little bit from necessity.
And getting to explore my creativity through food in that method, it was just so exciting, almost intoxicatingly so [laughs] for me, that I just kept following my curiosity in that direction and kept creating new dishes and wanting to try new things.
I'd hear about another forageable plant from a different, you know, Midwestern forager, and I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I bet you if I find a place in my city that checks all of these different location boxes, I'll find it, too." And there's something really exciting about a scavenger hunt with a real tangible-
... prize, and that prize being flavors that you frequently can't find in the grocery store.
I mean, just today I was foraging serviceberries in the Amelanchier genus, and outside of, like, Saskatoon in Canada, you really can't get these fruits just at your regular run-of-the-mill store.
They're kind of like a seasonal delicacy that you just happen to find on [laughs] street trees wherever you live, and they're delicious.
Like, I spend all year Dreaming about it finally being serviceberry season again.
Foraging has opened up my culinary world to so much more than what I feel like the grocery store sometimes limits us to.
So what were some of the first things you discovered when you started on this trip after college?
Well, I had some old reliables, some tried and trues that my mom or friends or even, like, summer camp counselors had taught me when I was a kid.
When you mow your lawn and it suddenly weirdly smells like onion rings-
... you probably just ran over a patch of onion grass, which is edible and-
Um, so historically, foraging was done because people had to forage, obviously, right?
You forage not necessarily 'cause you have to, you, you forage 'cause you love to.
Well, you know, some of my foraging, and I feel like my deep dive into foraging in adulthood, did come a little bit from necessity.
And getting to explore my creativity through food in that method, it was just so exciting, almost intoxicatingly so [laughs] for me, that I just kept following my curiosity in that direction and kept creating new dishes and wanting to try new things.
I'd hear about another forageable plant from a different, you know, Midwestern forager, and I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I bet you if I find a place in my city that checks all of these different location boxes, I'll find it, too." And there's something really exciting about a scavenger hunt with a real tangible-
... prize, and that prize being flavors that you frequently can't find in the grocery store.
I mean, just today I was foraging serviceberries in the Amelanchier genus, and outside of, like, Saskatoon in Canada, you really can't get these fruits just at your regular run-of-the-mill store.
They're kind of like a seasonal delicacy that you just happen to find on [laughs] street trees wherever you live, and they're delicious.
Like, I spend all year Dreaming about it finally being serviceberry season again.
Foraging has opened up my culinary world to so much more than what I feel like the grocery store sometimes limits us to.
So what were some of the first things you discovered when you started on this trip after college?
Well, I had some old reliables, some tried and trues that my mom or friends or even, like, summer camp counselors had taught me when I was a kid.
When you mow your lawn and it suddenly weirdly smells like onion rings-
... you probably just ran over a patch of onion grass, which is edible and-
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