Another cultural reference made in the series is the appreciation for fine cuisine, yet another trait that is very common in many Italian families. Tony, either when he is at home or at work, his meals are usually fulfilling dishes. This is a common reference made in many shows which deals with Italian families and Italian lifestyle. The appreciation for Italian cuisine is a fundamental custom in the Italian culture, however it symbolizes a lot more than just the desire to eat . The Sopranos employ many cultural traditions in order to demonstrate the central theme of the Mafia existing in a modern society. The Mafia is an organization that is founded on traditions and codes, which are sacred to the survival and secrecy of the business. By maintaining the cultural traditions in all aspects of the show it perpetuates the importance of tradition in Tony’s crime family.

        Stefan Herrmann suggests in his article "Do we learn to ‘read’ television like a kind of ‘language’?" that TV is easily interpreted by viewers because of the knowledge that we have acquired simply by living in a mass media society. We learn to decode certain signs and symbols because of our knowledge of society, we develop referent systems, which allow us to understand and interpret different cultural and social artifacts such as television shows. In The Soprano’s there are many cultural references and one might assume that interpreting such a text would be difficult, but our social and cultural knowledge allows us to bring certain signs and codes to the surface and therefore make sense of television shows quite easily. Television and other forms of media has become a language in which we can read and understand effortlessly, simply because of its super saturation into the market place and thus our familiarity with it.

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Michael Mandarino