“A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French Pilot and Author
Buenos Aires – It’s been awhile since I wrote something for What’s Up Buenos Aires?, but the recent flurry of online activity over local food heritage was just too much fun to resist, especially following on the whole milanesa photo “scandal”… Latest piece is currently up in WUBA’s News section, but will gradually scroll off to the right… a copy is, of course, on my website.
I expect that the Heritage Commission will soon declare the brisket sandwich as native to Argentina and start charging Katz’s Deli a licensing fee. Pizza? Come on.
A year later, I stumble across this site with a nice (in Spanish) explanation of the history of the milanesa – interestingly, tracking it back from Lima, Perú to Viena, Austria, to Milan, Italy, and then jumping forward to the urban legend about its creation with all that stuff atop it in Buenos Aires. For those who can read Spanish it’s a nice little historical survey.