It’s a bit like more traditional Anglo and Celtic American foods in that respect, lots of simple shit that tastes good by itself but is generally considered basic or has had certain context stripped with time. A good example is meatloaf which in some reasons was basically whatever meat and possibly eggs you had lying around after a bit thrown together in an loaf. But then you get shit like cheese curds and it’s just deep fried cheese and it’s great.

Also you can end up with something like my ancestoral food traditions where it’s just soup, cooked meats, and weird increasingly modified trail foods. The trail foods also happen to still be cheap even with modifications, though I guess rice and chili ain’t exactly that complex.