Still though, just thinking back to the cuisine in my wife's home country (a thoroughly 3rd world country), even with something as basic as a fish you get from a fisherman on the road, we'd eat fried fish, fish curry, fish stew, fish sautéed with various starchy vegetables or greens then eaten with flatbread or rice, and so on...

Even in a culture where the only cooking implement is a fire in the backyard (and a clay oven similar to a tandoor), all the vegetables come from no further than the next village over, and starchy vegetables are dug up from behind the house, the variety was staggering.

Fusion cuisine exists everywhere BTW. African cuisine has Arab and Indian influence, Caribbean cuisine has African, Indian and Amerindian influence, Asian food has Western and Indian influence, and the various Asian cuisines all borrow from one another.

Heck a great example of fusion cuisine is the Kebab - seen from Germany to Turkey to Iran, Pakistan, all the way to Vietnam and elsewhere. All have regional variations, yet all can trace some sort of middle-eastern (likely Iranian) origin.

The fusing of cuisines has happened since the beginning of time, ever since nomads encountered agriculturalists, since Egyptians traded with Sumerians, since Greeks journeyed to Babylon and India, when merchants travelled along the silk road (all Western cuisines use Black Pepper, which is certainly not indigenous to Europe), etc...