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Vegetables from Prignitz, Brandenburg, Germany

Knieperkohl (Prignitz mixed-cabbage sour kraut)Knieperkohl

Knieperkohl is a sour dish of the Prignitz made from white cabbage, blue marrow-stem kale (or red cabbage leaves) and curly kale, with vine and cherry leaves. The leaves are boiled, pressed, salted and layered in stoneware pots to sour for four to ten weeks.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Knieperkohl itself.

Short entryVegetables28 days – 2.3 months

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
white cabbage
blue marrow-stem kale (Markstammkohl), or red cabbage leaves
curly kale
vine leaves
cherry leaves
salt

Total time across the recorded steps: 28 days – 2.3 months

Start
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What changes: Cabbage and kale leaves are boiled briefly and squeezed out

Step 1 of 3
Boil the cabbage leaves briefly and press them out
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Knieperkohl is a sour dish of the Prignitz made from white cabbage, blue marrow-stem kale (or red cabbage leaves) and curly kale, with vine and cherry leaves. The leaves are boiled, pressed, salted and layered in stoneware pots to sour for four to ten weeks. Made in 3 steps over 28 days – 2.3 months. The longest step, lactic fermentation, takes 28 days – 2.3 months (German Wikipedia 2026).

Key numbers
Main step28 days – 2.3 monthsReported[s1]Lactic fermentation

What makes this one different

Knieperkohl mixes several brassicas, white cabbage with kale and marrow-stem kale or red cabbage leaves, and adds vine and cherry leaves. The leaves are boiled before salting, unlike raw sauerkraut.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Surn HansenAnother local name for Knieperkohl, a flagship dish of the region; its season ends in spring at the Perleberg market.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

German Wikipedia says its history begins at the end of the Thirty Years' War, when only a twelfth of the Prignitz population was left and no white cabbage remained, so people soured fodder cabbage. It adds that the dish grew from this over the years [s1].

  1. [s1] German Wikipedia, Knieperkohl, read 2026-10-16wiki
  2. [s2] English Wikipedia, Knieperkohlwiki
  3. [nordkurier2026] Schmidt A. 2026, Wettkniepern, wer macht den besten Knieperkohl?, Nordkurier, 5 March 2026web