Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi can look like a root pulled from the soil, yet its crisp globe forms above ground. That globe is a swollen stem, surrounded by leaf stalks, and it belongs to Brassica oleracea—the same remarkably adaptable species behind kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

Because kohlrabi is a domesticated crop group, it does not have a simple wild homeland of its own. Its deeper ancestry lies in the European wild-cabbage complex associated with coastal areas of western and southern Europe. Farmers selected different parts of this lineage over many generations; in kohlrabi, selection emphasized a short, thickened stem.

Recognizable kohlrabi appears in European written and botanical records by the 16th century. It became especially established in German-speaking and Central European cooking, a connection preserved in its German-derived name: Kohl means cabbage and Rübe means turnip. Despite that name, it is botanically closer to cabbage than to true turnips.

Cultivation later spread across Europe and into Asia. Kohlrabi became particularly familiar in northern India, where it is often cooked with its leaves as well as its stem. Today green and purple-skinned cultivars are grown in temperate regions worldwide, including California and the Pacific Northwest. Beneath either skin color, the flesh is usually pale, juicy, and mildly cabbage-like.