Bowls outside the stone house, a pasta-eating contest, a bus stop known simply as «Supani»: for decades this inn was one of the places where Salce met
In the book published for the Group’s 60th anniversary one name keeps coming back, on different pages and in different years, always inside a caption and never explained: Osteria Supani, the Supani inn. For anyone who grew up in Salce there was clearly nothing to explain. Put side by side, though, those photographs tell more than thirty years of village life in front of the same door.
A house in the background
The oldest dates from November 1939. In the foreground stands Tecla Ranon, light coat and fur collar, «dressed in the latest fashion», as the caption puts it. The gravel road bends behind her and, beyond the hedge, a white house appears: the Osteria Supani. The picture was taken for Tecla, not for the inn. That is exactly why it matters: it shows the place the way people saw it every day, without paying attention.
Bowls in 1941
Two years later the camera stops in front of the house: a building of bare stone, rows of windows on several floors, a large dark doorway and, in front, the beaten ground where men are playing bowls. One of the players crouches, having just thrown. The caption names, from the left, Silvio Toffoli, Augusto Ranon, Pietro Merlin, Ferdinando Casagrande, Ferruccio Toffoli and Mario Tramontin. There are more people in the picture, though, and some of them still have no name.
Italy had recently entered the war. In front of the inn, for the length of a game, the photograph does not let it show.
The pasta-eating contest
In 1946 the Osteria Supani hosted a contest that still makes people smile: a race to finish a plate of pasta. It is the photograph at the top of this page. Along a long table outdoors the contestants bend over their plates, faces almost in the food, while half the village crowds around them. There are men in white shirts and ties, boys climbing up for a better view, children in the front row and, beside the table, a man standing who follows the contest closely.
The photograph does not say who won, nor whose idea it was. It does say that the war had been over for little more than a year, and that for a contest like this the whole village had come out together. There are dozens of faces and, for now, not a single name: that is why MEMORIA has given it a page of its own, Salce, 1946: the pasta-eating contest.
Blessing the machines
In 1964 the open space in front of the Osteria Supani was used to bless the farm machinery; in the foreground, the caption says, is Luigi Coletti. That was the year the Alpini Group of Salce received its pennant. The Group, however, hung its sign elsewhere, at the Bar «Da Narciso» in Col di Salce, and held its members’ dinner of January 1965 at the «All’Appalto» inn run by the alpino Primo Pol. Salce had more than one inn, and each had its own regulars.
«Cara Santola Supani»
The most vivid memory of the inn is not in a caption but in a poem. Luigina Tavi, a dialect poet born in Salce, wrote it on 4 November 1996; the Col Maòr published it in its first issue of 2004, announcing her collaboration with the newsletter. It is called «…rivive momenti…» («moments come back to life») and it opens at the bus stop: «Co spète l’autubus / a Salce, da Supani» – «When I wait for the bus / in Salce, at Supani’s». At that moment the old inn is covered in scaffolding, stripped of its roof and plaster, with workmen busy on it; and the woman waiting for the bus, looking at it, becomes a child again.
She sees her father, Luigi Tavi, a mountain artilleryman and Knight of Vittorio Veneto, playing morra at the stone table outside the door; the men playing cards inside; someone at the counter ordering «n’ombra», a glass of wine. And she sees «la vècia parona», the old landlady who served everyone and who was her godmother: «Cara Santola SUPANI» – «Dear godmother Supani». From the inn you went down to the little stable where «la tó cara vachèta», her beloved cow, was kept; and the godfather too, when work was done, would sit and enjoy «an scudelòt de fasói», a bowl of beans. Then the bus arrives, and those memories stay, she writes, «vivi dentro de mi» – alive inside me.
What we do not know yet
The captions only say «Salce». We do not know for sure where the house stood, how long the inn stayed open, who the «Santola Supani» was, or what became of the building after the works of 1996. Among the things that are gone, Luigina Tavi’s poem also mentions «al dógo de i sbò’c»: the same place appears in a story by Paolo Tormen about Col di Salce. What was it, and where?
Help us remember
Do you remember where the Osteria Supani stood, and what that house is today? Do you know who the «Santola Supani» was, or until when the inn stayed open? Do you have a photograph of its sign, its interior or the feasts held there? Can you recognise the other people in the 1941 bowls picture? Write to us: every piece of information is checked before it is added.
Dates
| November 1939 | Tecla Ranon photographed in front of the Osteria Supani |
| 1941 | Bowls in front of the inn |
| 1946 | The pasta-eating contest |
| 1964 | Blessing of the farm machinery in front of the inn |
| 4 November 1996 | Luigina Tavi writes «…rivive momenti…»: the old inn is being restored |
| 2004 | The poem appears in the Col Maòr, no. 1 |
In the MEMORIA network
- Salce, 1946: the pasta-eating contest, the photograph waiting for its names
- Col di Salce, with the Bar «Da Narciso», the Group’s first home
- A year of mourning, then the pennant: the Alpini Group in 1964
- Salce, the village
Sources
- 60th anniversary book of the Alpini Group of Salce (2024), pp. 72, 99, 107, 109
- Col Maòr no. 1/2004, p. 14: Luigina Tavi, «…rivive momenti…» (4 November 1996)
- Col Maòr no. 3/1964 (the Bar «Da Narciso», the Group’s seat) and no. 6/1964 (the dinner at Primo Pol’s «All’Appalto» inn)
