My dad was a doctor, and he would tell us a lot of nasty, funny stories from the hospital. It was funny to me when I'd go over to other people's houses and they didn't talk about intestines at the table.
My family traveled a lot. For a while we even lived in a trailer and traveled from campground to campground. If we got to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, it was the highlight of our whole year! But I don't miss having to share a bathroom with seven people or having powdered milk with my cereal. It was so nasty.
You don't want flame to hit your food. Flame is bad. Flame does nasty things to food. It makes soot and it makes deposits of various chemicals that are not too good for us. The last thing you really want to see licking at your food while it's on a grill is an actual flame.
The most successful hyperpowers are the ones where there was actual intermixing. Tang dynasty China was China's golden age, and contrary to what I was told when I was growing up, Tang China was founded by a man who by today's standards was no more than half Chinese. It was a mixed-blood dynasty that pulled in 'barbarians' from the steppe.