[Discussion] What are some of the nuances of cooking from world cuisines?

For example, pad thai should be balanced between sweet, sour, and salty. Indian dishes don't have meat as the feature in a dish but rather it's added for some texture; the dish itself is the feature. Hunan cooking is dry and hot and often sour and differs from Sichuan cooking which it's often compared against. Generally speaking in Asian cuisines, if you don't cook the spices exactly correctly, it will change the taste of the dish quite a bit.

As a francophone, i can say that french-based cooking is an art as the ingredients are traditional basics that are in season. The food should be delicate or have a cut (e.g. a creamy cheese should have something acidic to cut it like a nice wine). It is the combination of the techniques (method of cutting ingredients like julienne style or method of cooking like flambee, saute, etc.) to create the dish.