Chili peppers can be used to compensate for otherwise poor flavor, but that is certainly not the only use case. Fat sugar salt and other spices can be used like

Chili peppers can be used to compensate for otherwise poor flavor, but that is certainly not the only use case. Fat sugar salt and other spices can be used like that too. If British food is obnoxiously spicy to you, you're probably very unaccustomed to spicy food. When someone is accustomed to piquant foods, they aren't distracted as easily by the heat. Different peppers have very different flavor and spice profiles that are easier to pick up when you don't have to immediately drown out with milk. They also don't come through in small quantities, so if you haven't been desensitized you wont be eating enough to taste the other flavors.