You'll note that we are asking people for their opinion about their favorite spicy cuisine -- we haven't asked people to name the world's spiciest cuisine.
It's very possible that for some people, particularly pasty British Brummies who have rarely explored world cuisines and have sensitive palates, a nice Balti (invented in Birmingham) is their favorite spicy food ... or maybe for some of these folks their favorite dish is a spicy horseradish spread on a Sunday roast. Whatever, England didn't crack the Top 30 in the poll anyhow
It's also interesting to think: How long before something is truly recognized as part of a national cuisine? Fish and Chips dates back to the 1860s and was originally also an immigrant cuisine, but we would all recognize is as British. Same with burgers in the US, which have an even shorter history in America.
What English food is "hot"? Transplanting vindaloo from India don't make it "English." Inclusivity stops at the palate.
Hmm. Tell that to the Indians, Koreans, Thai and Chinese, whose traditional foods never contained chili peppers until they were imported into their cultures in the 1600s via Portguese traders who brought it from the Americas.
So I guess we should categorize them all as varieties of Native American cuisine
My point is that food that is purveyed from"ethnic restaurants" in a country is, for that reason, not representative of the host country's cuisine. It takes a good long while for foods to be naturalized. Truly spicy food has not become anything like a part of mainstream cuisine in any European culture. Hot peppers transformed a broad swathe of Asian cookery. In Europe, it remains a niche item. Hell, look at Hungary. They mainstreamed peppers, but at a price. The noble hot pepper has been effectively emasculated into paprika. I love Hungarian food. "Spicy hot" is plain AIN'T. (With the exception of "Eros" variety paprika which is scarcely ubiquitous.) Your point reaches the level of inanity of those who ascribe to the literal truth of the History Channel. "Oooooh, I saw where peppers were originally from the Western Hemisphere! That makes me soooo much more aware." My point stands: pepper-laden foods purveyed from ethnic restaurants do not represent the host's cuisine. Maybe the best chili in the world is made in Kamchatka, Russia by a transplanted Mexican cook. Great. That don't make Russian cuisine the world's spiciest. My initial post pretty well spelled that out with my Estonian parable.