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My personal theory/cope about national cuisines is that they're powered by poor immigrants. India, China, Italy, these are probably the big 3 in terms of national cuisine, all three had a large peasant population going into the 20th century. They wanted to emigrate, but they had no skills except for cooking food, so they opened restaurants whenever they could, first providing for the cheap labour of their compatriots who had also arrived in the host country, then developing their cuisine to be palatable to the host country, mostly Americans, who then broadcast their advertisement for the cuisine through the media. Mexico also fits into this category.
British people in the 20th century weren't emigrating to the new world en masse, but the ones that were were able to gain higher-ranking jobs. British peasantry had mostly ended by the 19th century, and no emigrants were going to America to develop the concept of a Yorkshire pudding.
