Who is Nara Smith and why are her recipes going viral?

If you've been on TikTok lately, then chances are an elaborate recipe from TikToker Nara Smith has popped up on your For You page - but who is she?

Nara Smith (née Pellman) is a 22-year-old South African and German model who has over 6m followers on TikTok which she has gained through sharing how she makes different foods and meals from scratch.

Smith was born in South Africa and later moved to Germany at three months old and was raised there, and began her modelling career at the age of 14.

She then made the big move to the US on her own at 18 years old and in 2020 married fellow model Lucky Blue Smith who rose to online prominence back in 2015.

Both Nara and Lucky share three children together - Rumble Honey, Slim Easy and Whimsy Lou (Nara is also a stepmother to Lucky's daughter Gravity Blue from a previous relationship).

The unique names of the couple's children sparked discourse online, while Smith went viral for sharing similar baby names - such as Pear, Pepper, Frosty and Flick - that she liked but wouldn't be using during her third pregnancy.

Another discussion point has been the fact that the couple are Mormons, however Smith has previously spoken out to clarify that she is still "learning and figuring out" her religious beliefs.

Often seen wearing stylish dresses or cashmere loungewear in her videos, Smith records the process of cooking her meal which she does from scratch pretty much all of the time and gives a softly spoken narration (sometimes in German) of each stage.

The reason Smith makes her food from scratch is due to her Lupus and eczema diagnosis which candidly shared her health journey on Instagram last year.

"I drastically changed my diet (cutting out grains, dairy, sugar) and swapped out all my products for more natural options," she explained.

From making her own homemade bread, bagels, cheese, snickers bars and pop tarts, Smith does it all - and in her most recent video, she even makes chewing gum from scratch.

In the video, Smith details how she made green apple and cinnamon vanilla flavours of gum for her sister-in-law Pyper America.

The comments section often ranges from people surprised to see she's made the food from scratch.

One person said: "Who has gum base lying around at home."

"so... was this cheaper than buying a pack of gum or?" another person asked.

A third person added: "She was craving gum and you happened to have gum base, iconic I fear."

"How she find these instructions," a fourth person commented.

Someone else added: "Making GUM from scratch is wild."

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