Schnitzel

Schnitzel comes from the Middle High German sniz, meaning 'a cut' or 'a slice.' The diminutive suffix -el made it snitzl, then Schnitzel—a small, thin cut of meat. The word described a technique, not a recipe: pound the meat flat, bread it, fry it. That technique may be older than the name.

The Wiener Schnitzel—veal pounded thin, breaded in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, fried in butter—became Vienna's signature dish by the early 19th century. Austrian legend credits Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky with bringing the recipe from Milan in 1857, claiming it was inspired by the Italian cotoletta alla milanese. Milan disputes this. The Italians say the Austrians stole their recipe.

The Austrian food historian Ingrid Haslinger investigated the Radetzky story in 2009 and found no mention of cotoletta in his military dispatches. The breading technique likely arrived in Austria through multiple routes—Byzantium, Spain, the Ottoman Empire—all of which had traditions of coating meat before frying. No single origin story holds up.

Schnitzel spread across Central Europe and beyond. In Israel, it became a staple of everyday cooking, made with chicken instead of veal. In Japan, tonkatsu—a breaded pork cutlet introduced during the Meiji era—follows the same logic. The word still means what it always meant: a small cut, flattened and fried. The technique is universal. Only the name is German.