I've read you guys have a too sweet baseline for flavours, due to the overwhelming presence of corn syrup in everything.

Iberian cuisine, as in Portuguese and Spanish (fuck those guys; they can't make proper bread even if you teach them!), can be spicy but adding heat to a dish serves to accentuate the underlying flavours.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a simple roasted chicken with lemon and mussels.

The chicken is just prepared by seasoning the chicken with coarse salt and stuffing it with a whole lemon, with the ends cut, and roasting in the oven. With the chicken ready, you just take the lemon from inside the bird and squeeze it over. Base flavours are lemon and salt, with the chicken fat binding everything together. You should complain the meat is a bit under salted; it means you are actually tasting it.

The mussels are prepared with white wine, salt and garlic. The garlic is chopped and slightly fried, just until fragrant, in olive oil. The mussels are thrown in, lightly salted, tossed in the base, over high heat, then the wine added and the pot covered to steam the mussels until all are open. Or can just sprinkle salt over the mussels on your plate. You want to taste the mussel.

These are basic dishes any child can eat. Not too extreme flavours. Adding a chopped chilli to the mussels base and a chilli inside the chicken will add a sligh note of heat to the dishes, embolden the overall flavours, but you will still be getting the base flavours after swallowing, lingering in your mouth.

Food should leave a memory. It's supposed to be flavourful, not painful.