page_title: Wiener schnitzel
section_title: History and etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Wiener schnitzel / History and etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: A Wiener Schitzel with potatoes, served at Gasthaus Joainig, Pörtschah am Wörthersee, Carinthia, Austria.
context_page_description: Wiener schnitzel, sometimes spelled Wienerschnitzel, as in Switzerland, is a type of schnitzel made of a thin, breaded, pan-fried veal cutlet.
  It is one of the best known specialities of Viennese cuisine, and one of the national dishes of Austria.
context_section_description: The designation Wiener Schnitzel first appeared in the 19th century, with the first known mention in a cookbook from 1831. In the popular southern German cookbook by Katharina Prato, it was mentioned as eingebröselte Kalbsschnitzchen (roughly, 'breaded veal cutlets').
  According to a tale, field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz brought the recipe from Italy to Vienna in 1857. In 2007, linguist Heinz Dieter Pohl could prove that this story had been invented. According to Pohl, the dish is first mentioned in connection with Radetzky in 1869 in an Italian gastronomy book (Guida gastronomica d'Italia), which was published in German in 1871 as Italien tafelt, and it is claimed that the story instead concerned the cotoletta alla milanese. Before this time, the story was unknown in Austria. The Radetzky legend is however based on this book, which claims that a Count Attems, an adjutant to the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria gave a notice from Radetzky about the situation in Lombardy and mentioned a tasty veal steak in a margin note. After Radetzky had returned, the emperor personally requested the recipe from him.
  Pohl relates this anecdote with the words: "This story is scientifically meaningless, it does not cite any sources and it is not mentioned […] in the literature about Radetzky. No such Count Attems appears in any biographical work about the Austrian monarchy, which would have corresponded to this time and position."
  Pohl doubts that Wiener schnitzel came from Italy at all, with the basis that in the other "imported dishes" in Austrian cuisine, the original concept is mentioned, even if in Germanised form, such as in goulash or Palatschinke (that is, pancake), and the schnitzel does not appear even in specialised cookbooks about Italian cuisine.
  Pohl hints that there had been other dishes in Austrian cuisine, before the Schnitzel, that were breaded and deep fried, such as the popular Backhendl, which was first mentioned in a cookbook from 1719. The Schnitzel was then mentioned in the 19th century as Wiener Schnitzel analogically to the Wiener Backhendl.
  Documents in the Milan archive of Saint Ambrose dated 1148 use the Latin name lumbolos cum panitio, which can be translated as "little chops with breadcrumbs". This can be a hint that a dish similar to the cotoletta alla milanese already existed at that time.
  In 1887, E. F. Knight wrote of a Wienerschnitzel ordered in a Rotterdam cafe, "as far as I could make out, the lowest layer of a Wienerschnitzel consists of juicy veal steaks and slices of lemon peel; the next layer is composed of sardines; then come sliced gherkins, capers, and diverse mysteries; a delicate sauce flavours the whole, and the result is a gastronomic dream."
caption: A Wiener schnitzel served at a restaurant in Carinthia, Austria
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