On the last Friday of October, when it got dark early, the griddles were lit in Piazza dei Martiri. The smell of pastìn drifted in under the arcades, and meanwhile someone with a race bib on their shirt was running up the stairways of the old town. For three autumns Belluno had a festival like this: it was called “Il Pastìn in piazza… di corsa” (Pastìn in the square… on the run). Pastìn is Belluno’s own speciality, a seasoned mix of minced pork and beef, grilled and served in a roll or with polenta.
How it began
The idea came from Renato Bortot, who had long wanted to bring to the city an event that would combine sport, running above all, with home cooking. The place could only be the centre. “And why not? Let’s do Piazza dei Martiri!”, wrote the Col Maòr in December 2016.
There had already been a pastìn festival in the square, years earlier, and it had then been abandoned. In 2016 city councillor Biagio Giannone therefore spoke of an “edition zero”: starting again from a local product, bringing it “to the most beautiful square” and marrying it to sport.
The Alpini of Salce
For something like that, our newsletter wrote, you need “a group of friends, a bit mad, willing to follow you”. The council of the Salce Alpini Group said yes and set to work: marquees, gazebos, supplies. With AICS Belluno, the Municipality and the associations of the town centre, the festival was held from 28 to 30 October 2016.
The Group ran the “polenta department”: about ten cooks at the caliera, the big copper pot, supplying all the stands. The ladies fried apple fritters, Andrea Dal Pont roasted chestnuts. On Sunday, for those who had run, there was pasta with pastìn sauce, with Stefano Tavi in charge of the kitchen and a sauce by Ennio Pavei, who between one ladle and the next also took the photographs.
When sport and tradition met
On Friday evening came “Su… per scale”, less than three kilometres up the city’s stairways, and the prize was a pastìn roll. On Sunday it was the turn of the Belluno Urban Marathon: a seven-kilometre loop through the historic centre, to be done once with the family or six times to reach the 42 kilometres of the marathon. Start, laps and finish were in the square, in front of the stalls. Those who ran and those who ate were in the same place.
A full square
They really were “three days kissed by the sun” (three years in a row). On Saturday the group leaders of the ANA Section arrived with president Angelo Dal Borgo, and it ended in singing. In the evening, the Col Maòr recounts, the festival “then flowed into a river of families”. Four butchers competed for the title of “Re del Pastìn”, awarded by public vote: Macelleria Segat of Belluno won by a handful of votes.
In 2017 there were five butchers, the marquee was bigger, and alongside the meat there were the cheeses of the Latteria di Camolino. On Saturday evening two concerts, one under Porta Dante and one on the stage. On Sunday a relay bore the name of Rinaldo Bortot, a friend who had recently died. The “Re del Pastìn” was Macelleria Gaz of Mas di Sedico. The story is told in the Col Maòr of December 2017.
Pastìn as identity
Pork and beef, spices, white wine: every butcher has his own hand, and every Bellunese a favourite. Putting them side by side, with people voting, meant treating pastìn for what it is: a way of recognising one another.
What it was worth to the city
No one, as far as we know, counted the visitors. The reports of the time speak of a city that “still wanted to leave the house and be in company”, of shops, associations and producers in the same square, of runners who came from outside the province too. In 2018 the programme added a fair of farmers and craftspeople, and the walk for the centenary of the Liberation of Belluno finished right there, at the pastìn marquees.
There was also the Facebook page, still active, for anyone who wants to scroll through the photos of the races, the stands and the award ceremonies over the years.
The Group had one rule: bring people into the square without overdoing the prices of what is eaten and drunk. A square is truly full when a family can sit down without counting the cost. There were those who, once the festival was over, asked for it to be held again in spring.
Why it all stopped
In 2018 the Sunday of the race was lucky, because storm Vaia was reaching the city but spared us. Then, from the evening, came the storm that devastated the province in those days. Those who were in the square remember the wind on the marquees and the rush to save the equipment: nothing was lost, but it was close.
After 2018 the festival never came back. In 2019 the Group’s council decided not to submit the project again.
Those who sat on the council at the time remember the reasons like this: constant organisational tensions with the Municipality, space in the square denied to the Alpini and then assigned to the Christmas events in the square. It is one side’s recollection, our own, and we report it as such: we have not yet read the municipal records of those months.
Could it come back?
What the Group kept from that experience is the know-how. In 2020, at the height of the emergency, the Alpini of Salce brought the “panino alpino” to the staff of Belluno hospital, and the group leader wrote that the organisation did not worry them, given what they had learned in the square.
One question remains, which we put to the Municipality, the Province, those who promote the area, the associations, the shopkeepers, the butchers, those who organise races: can Belluno once again build a great autumn weekend that brings together sport, pastìn, the historic centre, associations and tourism?
The photographs: Piazza dei Martiri, 27–29 October 2017
Thirteen images of the second edition, from the Group’s archive. Click to enlarge.
Sources: Col Maòr No. 4/2016, No. 4/2017, No. 1/2019, No. 3/2020; Bellunopress, 19 October 2016; dolomitibelluno.it, 20 October 2017; recollections of the Group’s council members.
