Picanha · Brazil · Tafelspitz
The same rump cap. Brazil grills it over coals with the fat left on; Austria and Germany simmer it and slice it thin.
Five questions on beef, drawn from a catalog of 64 cuts named in ten countries. The hard part is never the meat — it is that the same muscle is called picanha in Brazil, tafelspitz in Germany and rump cap in Britain, and each tradition cuts it a little differently.
Where are you?
These are the pairs the quiz is built from, and the ones people most often arrive looking for. Each is a real link in the catalog — the same primal, butchered by two traditions that disagree about where to draw the line.
The same rump cap. Brazil grills it over coals with the fat left on; Austria and Germany simmer it and slice it thin.
Argentina's vacío and Brazil's fraldinha are the same flank muscle, cut to different thicknesses for different fires.
Short ribs cut across the bone rather than between them — the same crosscut arrived at independently in Argentina and Korea.
Same striploin, but the Argentine cut is thicker and keeps its fat strip, which is why it is a separate entry rather than a translation.
Chuletón is bone-in and usually aged; the ribeye is the same eye sold boneless. On this pair the bone is the whole point.
Both are the short loin cut through the T-bone with the fillet attached; Tuscany specifies the breed and the thickness.
The bottom sirloin triangle. California barbecues it whole; Brazil takes it to the churrasqueira on a skewer.
Brazil's alcatra covers more of the rump than the British rump steak does, which is why picanha is carved off it separately.
The same lean cylinder from the hind leg. Italy cures it into bresaola instead of roasting it.
Knuckle of the hind leg — milanesas in Buenos Aires, a slow roast in the United States.
The inside round. Britain roasts it; Argentina slices it thin for milanesas and matambritos.
Both come off the tenderloin, but chateaubriand is the thick centre roast for two and filet mignon is the steak.
One of the five questions asks you to point at the animal. These are the primals the beef diagram is divided into, and the ones the question can land on.
Shoulder. Aguja norteña, diezmillo, paleron, flat iron, Denver.
Ribeye, chuletón, prime rib, asado de tira, costela ponta de agulha.
Bife de chorizo, New York strip, T-bone, bistecca alla fiorentina.
Lomo, filet mignon, chateaubriand — one muscle, three traditions.
Picanha, alcatra, tafelspitz, rump steak.
Maminha, tri-tip, vacío, fraldinha.
Peceto, nalga, bola de lomo, topside, bresaola.
Arrachera, falda, skirt and flank — the taquería cuts.
Galbi, plate ribs, costillar, matambre.
Brisket and the Texas smoke that made it famous.
Osso buco, ossobuco, jarrete — the braise that needs the bone.
No — that is the single most common mix-up on this quiz. Picanha is the rump cap, off the top sirloin. Tri-tip is the bottom sirloin triangle, and its Brazilian counterpart is maminha, not picanha.
Flank, roughly — but no English-speaking butchery cuts it the same way. The Argentine vacío is thicker and keeps its membrane, which is why the catalog treats it as its own cut linked to the American flank rather than as a translation of it.
Because the traditions differ even where the anatomy does not. Both come off the striploin, but the Argentine cut is thicker and keeps its fat strip. The catalog links cuts like these with an equivalency rather than collapsing them into one entry with two names.
No. Every question shows the cut's name in the tradition that uses it, and the answer explains what the name means and where it is used. Most people learn the vocabulary from the game rather than bringing it.
The board on this page changes through the day, so coming back gets you new questions. The daily board at /guess is one shared set of five for everybody, which is what makes a shared score comparable — and /guess/practice reshuffles on every load.