CHICAGO — In Lidia Bastianich’s PBS special “Lidia Celebrates America: A Nation of Neighbors,” one of the people featured is Kiki Rough, who has gained a following on TikTok and other social media platforms for her “Recession Recipes” series of videos. A self-taught cook, she is helping people learn — or more accurately re-learn — how to make a dollar stretch in the kitchen, resurfacing ideas from earlier eras.

“I think a lot of people facing food insecurity right now feel very alone and isolated,” she tells Bastianich in the special, “and what I’m trying to do is make sure that they have the skills to feel normal and feel empowered, even though everything else feels like it’s on fire.”

It’s an especially timely subject with the recent uncertainty around SNAP benefits.

Rough, 29, wears heart-shaped glasses. She was born in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and moved around often as a child. Now she’s based in Porter County, Indiana. She started the “Recession Recipes” series less than a year ago, in February.

She was already on TikTok, with about 60,000 followers that she had picked up after posting videos of her and her husband “doing weird stuff, like he rigged a stove to heat our pool and we could bake cookies while our pool was being heated. Just funny stuff like that. I was just posting stuff randomly and didn’t have a strategy.”

In January, she lost her job working at a software technology company, “so I took a step back and said, what am I good at? I bought a nice camera and I was going to start doing software product demonstrations, because the industry I was working in was so niche that I figured I could find some of these companies in this ecosystem to buy software demonstrations from me.”

But instead of pursuing that, “Recession Recipes” came about — and by accident. “The biggest luxury to me was getting to a place where I could go to the grocery store and put whatever I wanted in my cart, and all of a sudden that wasn’t true again. So for fun, I decided to make a video making a common meal I used to make when I had no money. And I woke up after I posted that and I had 150,000 followers. And I was like, oh! So from there, I realized this is impacting people hard.”

Now she posts a new video three to four times a week, while juggling a new job that she landed in March. “I don’t make enough from this series to do it full-time, so I work about 30-40 hours a week at this software technology firm and then I get off and work about 20 hours a week on these videos.”

Reached at her home, she talked about the origins of the series and whether this is something she can eventually turn her attention to full-time.

Q: What’s your backstory as a cook?

A: I don’t have any formal culinary experience. The knowledge that I have is from life experience, and being totally kicked on my butt and having to make do with whatever I could get access to. I had to drop out of college for a while and all of a sudden I was working three minimum-wage jobs. I was on food stamps, but I only got about $40 a month. And then I got a 10 cent raise at one of my jobs and I lost my food stamps. So I was playing Tetris with my budget.

Q: Fast-forward to February and your thought process after posting that first video.

A: I was really excited at the response and I thought maybe this is when I start showing people the basic skills that I had to teach myself. We weren’t really a cooking household growing up; I love my mother, but she is not the best cook. Something that really excited my audience is what can actually be made in the kitchen, because we have a knowledge gap.

Q: When influencers start making money — sometimes big money — one criticism they have to contend with is that they’re not relatable anymore. Looking ahead longer term, how do you think about navigating that?

A: I’m very mindful about that. I have a tip jar, but I don’t want my followers to ever have to purchase my content. I want it to be free.

Right now, the way that I live would be considered lower middle class. I’m strictly shopping at Dollar General and Aldi right now. I would love to get to middle class. I’ve taken on about $5,000 in debt to create the series, so the money that I make not only goes to pay down that debt, but yesterday I just got a better camera that will allow me to show more intricate shots of what I’m doing. So I’m constantly making sure that I’m pouring money back into the series.

And I don’t advertise this, but sometimes I’ll send some of my followers grocery money. Or this one woman was like, “I’d love to make this but I don’t have spoons or bowls right now,” so I sent her a gift card to get spoons and bowls. I live very modestly and I hardly shop for myself, so I do not intend on turning this into something where I all of a sudden detach from the reality that my followers are living in. I don’t want this to be a get-rich cash funnel.

Q: In the PBS special, you talk about finding ideas in old recipe books from the early 1900s, the Depression and wartime eras.

A: We’ve already gone through this history and lived it as a society, so I can just pull from the pros. One thing that doesn’t necessarily translate is that back then, nearly everyone had access to eggs, and that’s just not the case anymore (with egg prices increasing). Or everybody used dairy, which isn’t the case now. My family has very severe food allergies — and a lot of them — so how can I take these recipes and do the math and make it not only modern, but adaptable for people who have food allergies?

What I’m mindful of is that people have limited ingredients and I don’t want to give them a recipe that requires a certain level of skill that they might not be at. But also, even if they make a couple of mistakes, it’ll still end up being good, because very few people can afford to waste their food. There is no room for experimentation in lower-income kitchens right now, so I have to make sure everything I’m putting out is an entry-level skill set, but also that whatever substitutions you use are going to work. You have to be able to eat that meal after you make it.

Q: Where are you finding these books?

A: Oh, it’s so fun, it’s like a treasure hunt! There is an antique book reseller near me that has my number on file and he’ll be like, “Hey, I just got one from the 1920s, do you want to come in?” But also I go to estate sales, there are a lot of hidden gems in there. And also, I was really touched by this, someone was clearing out their deceased parents’ house and found their cookbooks and sent them to me. I can’t tell you how much that moved me. The books are everywhere; you just need to know where to look.

Something I notice in the books is, all of a sudden there will be pigeon as an ingredient. They tried to use everything. Sometimes it will call for leftover grease from another recipe. You can tell everyone was trying to use every last drop. Also, they got a little too excited with Jell-O, I’ll say that.

Q: Are there recipes that you come across and think: No one is going to eat this, I really can’t consider it for an upcoming video.

A: Oh, 100%! Some of the ingredients are like: Are you willing to shoot rodents? There was this one cookbook I didn’t buy that was focused on recipes made with squirrel and rabbit.

Q: What recipe got a big response that surprised you?

A: Bagels and cream cheese. That blew some people’s minds, because they were like, “I’m not a bakery but I can make bagels?” That’s my favorite one. The bagels and the cream cheese are from scratch.

Q: Coming up with new ideas and then shooting and editing your videos is a full-time job in terms of time and effort. Do you want it to become your full-time job for real?

A: Well, right now I don’t have kids. So that’s a big time-freer. I have an acting degree and this series has allowed me to reconnect to that love of performance, but also that love of being myself. Because when you’re acting, you’re being someone else and tapping into someone else’s vision, and this has given me such a good creative outlet as myself.

It’s also the way that I can help right now. And I am so invested in the people that I’m helping, that I will continue to juggle this if I have to and don’t end up monetizing it enough to make it my full-time job.

It’s tough because my inbox is full of people who are so scared and they really express those fears to me. I’m just one woman, but with the SNAP uncertainty, I feel even more motivated. But the concern for everyone swallows me sometimes.

Q: What is it like becoming the face of a business venture?

A: It’s really humbling. I was bullied growing up, because I was a weird girl, because I make noise when I want, and I say funny things that may not land. So, becoming a personality that people gravitate to and trust, I’ve never felt more appreciated and supported in my life. It’s not like they’re loving this curated personality; they’re appreciating me.

I kind of had to have an ego death in order to put this together because I didn’t have an hour to do hair and makeup between my day job and the filming. I had to let that go and just show up how I am for the day and then slap that on the internet. And it’s made me let go of that vanity because the impact is there whether or not I have lipstick on. I know that the people at home care way less about how I look and care more about how I’m talking to them and the knowledge that I’m giving them.

Q: Have you been contacted by book agents or TV producers?

A: I have been contacted by a few book agents and what I will say right now is that I need to make sure that if I take a book deal that it heavily aligns with my values. And right now I’m not there yet.

I haven’t been reached out to by a producer yet, but having a show would be a dream. And I don’t think people understand how far I could take this. How bright I could make this.

I’m an adult, I don’t have kids, but I watch “Bluey” because it gives me this feel-good feeling. It’s wholesome and it calms me down after watching the news. And I think now is the time to step back and create that kind of positive content that people can lean into. That’s part of the appeal of Mr. Rogers or Bob Ross. They are neurologically calming!

So I would love to have a show where I meet new people, cook new things and get new perspectives on life from different walks of life. My brain is a constant creative machine and I know if I had the resources, there is so much cheer I could bring to households.

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