3 ideas
A national cuisine can be built on purpose, as a shared project that gives a divided country a common source of pride and an export identity. Framing everyday home cooking as a national asset draws in farmers, fishermen, cooks and diners across class and regional lines. That is what turns food from private habit into economic and cultural policy.
In Peru, Chinese chifa and Japanese Nikkei cooking keep their names and techniques while still counting as Peruvian. The same goes for African-descended dishes such as anticuchos and for Andean staples. Naming each strand, rather than dissolving it into a single 'national' flavor, makes the cuisine a map of who arrived, who labored, and what they contributed.
A reference cookbook compiled from domestic recipes rather than restaurant creations treats the home kitchen as the authoritative source of a cuisine. Collecting hundreds of everyday preparations fixes vernacular knowledge in written form. The recipes become a standard that chefs, schools and exporters can build on without losing the popular base.