An outdoor table, contestants bent over their plates and half the village all around. We know the place and the year of this photograph. What we are missing are the names
The photograph
The caption is only a few words long: «1946 Salce – Osteria Supani – pasta-eating contest». The picture tells the rest. Plates are lined up on a long wooden table outdoors; the contestants are over them with their whole face, and at least three are leaning so far forward that only the back of their white shirts can be seen. Among the plates on the table stand a few glasses.
Around them is a crowd no caption could hold. Men in shirts and ties, some wearing hats, boys who have climbed up the slope for a better view, a small boy in a light shirt watching very seriously. On the right, beside the table, a thin man in a light shirt follows the contest closely, one arm bent in front of him; next to him a girl is laughing. In the foreground, seen from behind, are those who could not get any closer.
It is 1946: the war has been over for little more than a year. The contest is held in front of the Osteria Supani, one of the places where Salce gathered to play bowls, drink a glass of wine and wait for the bus.
What we know
- Year: 1946, from the caption in the 60th anniversary book
- Place: Salce, at the Osteria Supani
- Occasion: a pasta-eating contest
- People: none is named
What we do not know
We do not know who the contestants were or who won, who organised the contest and for what occasion, on what day the picture was taken and by whom. MEMORIA does not assign names by looking at faces: a person is identified only when someone who knew them, or a document, confirms it.
Do you recognise anyone?
Do you recognise one of the contestants at the table, the man in the light shirt following the contest on the right, or anyone among the people standing? Do you know who won, or at which feast the contest took place? Do you have another photograph of the same day? Write to us, describing as precisely as you can where the person is in the picture (on the right, on the left, standing behind the table…). Every name will be checked and, if confirmed, added here with its position.
In the MEMORIA network
- The Osteria Supani: bowls in 1941, the bus stop and Luigina Tavi’s poem
- Salce, the village
Sources
- 60th anniversary book of the Alpini Group of Salce (2024), p. 99
- Original scan in the Group’s archive, material for the 60th anniversary book («Games and pastimes»)
