in indian gastronomy according to the indologist and author nrisingha prasad bhaduri bitter food has largely been a bangal thing that is the culinary tradition of east bengal and he attributes it to the availability of ingredientsi am a bangal and i grew up eating teto i am under the impression that traditionally teto is more of a bangal culinary mandate than the ghoti or the west bengal people and ill tell you why apart from dhaka historically bangladesh has been a villagedominated economy people there used to own land and ate what they produced for shopping they had to go to the nearby haat market but only to buy the delicacies like sweetmeats and all meanwhile they used to grow a variety of spinaches and other veggies bitter gourd has been one of the popular homeproduced vegetables there neem trees are found in every other corner of the neighbourhood this is the reason why the culture of eating bitter was so common i have eaten at least six varieties of shukto and each is very different from the other bhaduri saidshukto though a bitter item is not really bitter in its common use food columnist amitava malakar said a good cook is one whose shukto is not bitter that is the reason many use shiuli leaves with bitter gourd to prepare shuktoon the other hand the rainfall in the rarh region of bengal that includes bankura birbhum nadiya and other districts is less and that affects the produce the amount of bitter gourd that is produced in these areas is way less than that in east bengal when i first came to kolkata in 50s i was surprised to see people eating roti that too in dinner but in bangladesh we used to have bitter in our dinner with rice regularly bhaduri saidthe ghoti fightbackbangal matrei teto khaye said shirshendu mukhopadhyay who is known for visiting local bajar frequently i buy all sorts of teto including neem pata uchhe and all regularly from jodhpur park bajar i was told bitter items help us fight against pox this is the time we gorge on teto he addedhowever according to many bitter is definitely not just a bangal thing directorsingersongwriter anindya chattopadhyay said i come from a very traditional uttor kolkata ghoti bari and there were numerous restrictions regarding food in our kitchen for example chicken was a strict nono in our family similarly bitter gourd was a must on our regular menu but my mother used to add a little bit of sugar in neem begun my maternal uncles house is in sonarpur and we grew up under a strict regimen of my mama under his command there were two mandatory juices that i had to gulp khejurer rosh and kalmegh and thats not all once i had jaundice and i was forced to swallow chiratar juice and that was an ordeal ever since neembegun became a regular in my life see not many people like bitter taste but