It was quite impossible to watch Curry Tales without thinking of TV food shows.

All my fault, really. The night before, I stumbled upon an episode of Iron Chef — where Chef Mark Forgione and Chef Masaharu Morimoto were in this fierce match involving grilled pig, grilled fish, grilled vegetables, and bacon ice cream—and never left.

And then, this morning, I woke up from a dream where Anthony Bourdain sat beside me at Les Halles. Or at least what I think was Les Halles, since I’ve never been there. Why he was sitting beside me when I was on a date, I never really figured out. But he looked bored as he waited for me to finish my meal. I never did, because my dream dinner date didn’t really like the food and actually ran out. Bourdain had that “whatever” look on his face.

And then, a couple of nights before all these, I was watching my current favourite food show, Best In The World. Where you see Rafiz Hashim, who’s the greediest food show I’ve seen on TV, wolfing his way across Malaysia. The only person I know who gets “crazy eyes” when eating.

Which brings me back to Rani Moorthy’s enjoyable show that was also interesting for me on another level.

Yes, Curry Tales was about culture, history and everything else that food embodied, literally and metaphorically.

In this case, of course, it was curry. And you had six different dishes in six different contexts featuring six different characters, from a Delhi socialite named Dimple (!) to a middle-class British Asian woman.

With a lot of quotable curry-isms thrown in for good measure (“Embrace the inner curry in you!” “It isn’t curry until you know what went into it”) the dishes cooked/assembled in front of the audience by Moorthy’s characters reflected or distilled the “essence” of each scenario — even when you don’t understand the language, as in one particular episode.

My favourite image, and perhaps the strongest, is of the character of Mrs Wong, a Malaysian Indian, tied to her stove during the 1969 race riots. Perhaps I’m biased because it’s the one tale most closest to home, but it’s also a complex one that traces her roots to an Indian communist who found himself as part of Mao’s group before eventually ending up in the Malayan Communist Party. Later on, Mrs Wong’s multi-racial links becomes both bane and boon during that iffy period of racial violence — and instead of an IC, she’s got an awesome laksa curry recipe as her only trump card.

Curry Tales, though, isn’t saying anything new so much as renewing the argument for food as that which binds. But there is also another aspect here that’s equally engrossing — the quasi-cooking show format employed by Curry Tales.

Yes, it tips its chef’s hat to outdoor street theatre back in the day, where food and live performances coexisted perfectly. (Not really familiar with the Kutthu style mentioned in the programme so that’s probably another thing altogether).

But in today’s context, there is also perhaps the unintentional referencing of the pop culture world of food consumption and appreciation — or the illusion of it.

The setup isn’t any different from the TV cooking show set template, including an actual working stove. And we’re also ‘live’ audience members.

But, of course, it’s not technically a TV show. It’s not broadcast (although Esplanade probably has a recording of it for documentation purposes). Compared to the perfection of what we see on TV, here the stove may not work (which it didn’t early on) and someone may actually mess up the food (a rather opinionated audience member suggested way too much salt for one of the curries). Moorthy (or rather, her animated characters) sometimes go beyond audience interaction decorum (in a fun way of course).

And yes, you smell and, for the lucky ones, taste a bit of the food.

In a previous email interview I had with her, Moorthy seemed to be concerned that the eating bit would take precedence, the curry over the tales as it were.

But to me, what actually wraps around everything is the telling. Not in the conventional storytelling sense, but the simulation of it — or, more specifically, the simulation of a simulation, i.e. the TV food show — and Curry Tale’s interrogation that runs parallel throughout. It’s not only the excellent Moorthy acting in character, but also Moorthy acting in character-as-TV food show host.

Now I’m actually a bit confused, not knowing if what I’m about to say is a diss or not. But I’ll say it anyay: I’d love to see Curry Tales on TLC.

Moorthy’s “whatever” look is better than Bourdain’s.

Curry Tales runs until June 16, 8pm, Esplanade Theatre Studio. With a 3pm matinee on Saturday. Tickets at S$25 from Sistic.