We seek differences and use, adopt, and adapt them to create a common experience and community.  Indeed, we believe a sense of foreignness or otherness can create a community. From a phylogenetic perspective, bitter compounds in plants evolved as a defense against consumption by animals; in fact, amongst most mammals, Homo sapiens are the only ones to have developed an appreciation of bitterness, e.g. coffee, tea, and chocolate. Therefore, the appreciation of bitterness, the cultivation of a palette for bitterness across cultural-historical and ontogenetic timelines is the very thing that defines us as humans!

Additionally, artworks embodying the "NBMC Manual" toured five museums across the United States from 2012 to 2015. In the exhibition "Food and Kitchen Circulation and Anthropology" curated by Licklit Tilabani, preserved foods were created (recipe development) using tastes, cooking methods, and algorithms conceptualized with nutritionists and homeopaths, encapsulating the bitter memories of interviewees (2015). Furthermore, the project "Breeding is Bittersweet" involved collaboration between architectural teams, local residents, and students to create a community garden in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art using bamboo, producing an editioned item packaged as "Bittersweet Melon" from the new species harvested during workshops.

Background
Originally the National Bitter Melon Council was conceived for "Sifting the Inner Belt" which was a year-long experimental research and participatory project that closely observed and examined i.e. sift, Boston’s South End neighborhood, with an emphasis of creating emotional, conceptual, and physical bridges between the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) and the Berkeley Community Garden (BCG).

The South End district of Boston, USA, faced gentrification issues. Originating from the cessation of urban redevelopment circular construction in the 1970s, immigrants occupied vacant land, utilizing it as a vegetable garden to reminisce about hometown flavors and cultures. In 1991, this community garden (CG) was formalized, and officially entrusted by the city to its current state. Recognizing the high production rate of bitter melon, the project juxtaposes the "bitter memories" of the past and present collected from local residents, contemplating the essence of bitterness.