La verdad de la milanesa, literally “the truth of the milanesa,” is an Argentine Spanish expression meaning “the real truth.” One possible origin involves a dispute over whether the breaded meat dish milanesa comes from Italy or Austria. Another points to the nature of the cutlet itself, as its golden coating hides the quality or kind of the meat underneath. Depending on context, English equivalents for la verdad de la milanesa might be the bottom line or the heart of the matter, although the closest match might be see how the sausage is made. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “La Verdad de la Milanesa, an Argentine Spanish Expression for the Real Truth”
Welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi Marta.
I am Laura.
How are you doing?
Hi Laura.
I’m doing well.
How are you?
And where are you?
I am here in California, Davis, very close to Sacramento.
Mm-
Well what would, you like to talk with us about?
Yeah, because my husband and I and my kids as well, we are from Argentina.
I have many expressions we used in our country, but in the past I am not sure this current generation are using them any longer.
Are you familiar with the expression la verdad de la Milanesa in Spanish?
The truth of the Why do you ask about it?
What brought us up?
Because again, we are older people at that time we use it this expression very often to mean not only the truth but the real truth nothing to do with meat, nothing to do with the special cats we have in our country about meat but has to do with the way the lies and truth develop.
So when I am telling you the real truth, we use that expression.
So I’m curious to see if you know the expression is still in use.
If you have an equivalent in English, other languages that are using something similar to express the real truth of any story?
Yeah, I think I think I can help you with this.
There’s two possible origins.
One of the possible origins is there’s a dispute about where the food dish called a milanese comes from.
You know, it’s meat that is breaded and and either baked or fried.
And this has been a food item for for centuries, for a very long time.
And so some people say, well, it’s it’s from Italy, some people say it’s from Austria, and maybe that’s where the truth of the matter being decided comes from, is that dispute about its origins.
But the explanation that I prefer is that it’s more about this breaded coating of the milanesa, this this food item that we have, hides the meat underneath.
And so you don’t know what kind or quality of meat you’re going to get until you cut it open.
And there’s often an insinuation that the meat under that breaded coating is maybe from vermin, like rats or house pets or or spoiled meat, just like meat that you wouldn’t really want to eat.
And so to get to the truth of the the milanesa is to to look at the meat and see what’s under that that really golden breaded coating.
I see.
I see.
And what about expressions in English similar to this?
We would say it really depends on how Milanesa is used.
So sometimes it’s just straight up La Milanesa means a lie or a liar.
Sometimes we do they do use Spanish speakers do say La Verde La Milanesa as a whole expression.
So it could be the bottom line, the bottom line being the total at the bottom of a invoice or bill that shows you all the cost added up or it could be the heart of the matter the really central concern the thing in the middle that everything is connected to.
But I think the best translation, and again, it depends on context, is the English expression to see how the sausage is made, which we use to talk about like sausage is a a really nice food dish that tastes really yummy, but it’s often made of scrap meat.
And the insinuation sometimes is that sausage is made from eat that meat that you would not want to put in your mouth if you knew about it.
And so I think seeing how the sausage It just depends on context and construction.
Oh, thank you so much.
That’s great.
Congratulations on on your work.
Thank you.
Ciao, Laura..
Bye Bye-bye.
Take care.
Chao.
Bye-bye.
