Like the birds she recently got into watching, Alexis Nikole Nelson sees tasty food everywhere she looks. She has loved foraging—hunting for edible, wild plants—since her mom introduced her to it at age 5. Now Nelson, known as “Black Forager” to her millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok, uses her irrepressible enthusiasm and nerdy humor to inspire others to give wild food a place at their table. “I think it’s so exciting that we have all of these flavors hiding in your front yard, a local park, a local woodland,” says Nelson, whose expertise and social media savvy earned her a prestigious James Beard award in 2022. (Scroll to the bottom for one of her favorite foraged-food recipes.) Foraging provides a deeper understanding of your local ecosystem, its native plants, and the birds that rely on them. “I think when people realize that there is some sort of inherent value in the space around them, they take better care of it,” Nelson says. “They pay...