It’s interesting to note what ‘cultural staples and customs’ are actually a recent invention (in the grand scheme of things) or likewise popularized through corporations that advertised so hard that they embedded themselves into the very cultural fabric.

Cf. hamburgers being maybe 100 years old; tomato sauce being only put on pasta in the late 18th century; ‘standard Italian’ not being codified until the unification of Italy in the late 19th century (one reason why Italian-Americans perhaps say capisch instead of capisci? Some southern accents dropping the -i! [really, they’re languages——languages are just dialects with an army]), the food that we call kimchi today only popularly containing peppers starting in the 19th century; and the whole thing with car companies in the United States tearing up tram tracks and lobbying for jaywalking to be considered a crime!

Fun fact: even today, kimchi (and food in general) in North Korea is less spicy than the South, because they've basically missed out on 50 years of culinary evolution.

https://www.youngpioneertours.com/north-south-korean-kimchi/

Likewise, while Japanese cuisine is generally not spicy at all, the few outliers like mentaiko generally originate from the southern regions like Kyushu and Okinawa that traded with Korea & China.