My first introduction to Italian culture was Soliti Ignoti. So jet-lagged that I could barely mumble “grazie” during that initial feast with my host family, the sight of one contestant on TV guessing the secret identities of ten everyday Italians instantly invigorated me. How could this man know that the tan, seventy-two-year-old woman raised speckled pigs for a living, and that the tattooed, muscular young boy had eleven brothers?

Over the next few nights I began to learn. The first Italian was always a malnourished looking woman, one who had just won the beauty contest in her region. Next was an easily identifiable profession, such as a farmer wearing cruddy black boots. But the final eight depended on sheer intuition.

My family members could have easily carried away the grand prize of 250 thousand euros. Dinner turned into a game show as my host mother, brother, and sister erupted into vocal squabbles over whether the Italians’ outfits, hairdos, accents, makeup, age, posture, and hand wrinklage exposed their true character. “She’s too old to own a sexy shop,” my mother would observe thoughtfully, while my sister would scrutinize the Italians’ pronunciation. “He’s from the north— he must work at the cheese factory.

At dinner parties I showed off my acquisition of random vocabulary words gleaned from Soliti Ignoti, like casalinga (housewife), palloncino (balloon), falegname (carpenter), and anatra (duck). “Haley watches this program every night,” my host mother would boast to her guests, patting me on the cheek.

But one night she looked at me apologetically, spooning a bit of extra pasta al pesto on my plate. “Stasera non c’è Soliti Ignoti più,” she said. The show was over for the season, and we began following a complicated new spettacolo involving an array of pastel ribboned boxes instead….I’ll let you know how it goes.