I n the last few weeks, I have heard even the most educated and well-informed people tell me that if I am Baangal (meaning my ancestors are from East Bengal), then I must be Bangladeshi. This origin story led me down a rabbit hole—not of jingoism, but of celebrating the differences between the cuisines of East Bengal and West Bengal, both of which I grew up with, thanks to my paternal grandmother and my mother’s entire family being from undivided Bengal. Bengalis do not hate each other or consider people from across the border as the “other”. The main divide is culinary . People from West Bengal, called Ghotis, often say that Baangals, people from East Bengal, ruin food by drowning it in spices and oil and eat undercooked fish. East Bengalis, meanwhile, will tell you that people from West Bengal spoil everything by adding bowls of sugar– not entirely incorrect–and by frying fish till they have killed its taste. And that Baangals prefer to eat chapatis instead of rice, which, as we all know, is sacrilege.…