WARDENBURG, Germany — The weather was perfect as the group pulled their wagon — decorated with flashing lights and pumping out German pop songs from an industrial speaker — out into the fading winter afternoon light. Warm enough to enjoy a hike through the frost-clad countryside, but cold enough to work up an appetite.

No one in the group, save for the Kale King and Queen, knew the route. But everyone knew the next four hours of meandering down byways lined with pastures and fields, stopping at corners for games and several shots of schnapps, were only the warm-up.

“Don’t be afraid when you see it on your plate,” one hiker, Lena Bauer, said of the reward everyone knew was coming — curly kale stewed in pork fat or goose fat, and served up with bacon, sausages and steamed pearl potatoes. “It tastes so much better than it looks.”