I've realised recently that sauce is a general UK crutch. I knew like 5 ketchup kids growing up who ate everything with ketchup. Might be why we're known as a having bland food because we drown everything in sauce or gravy
Our national dish is literally dried toast with some saucy beans
What? Our national dish is stuff like the Sunday roast. We didn't even have baked beans until the last century and beans on toast is a comfort food not a national bloody delicacy.
The reason our more traditional dishes from the pre imperial era weren't highly spiced is because we simply didn't have access to them. We used things like sauces, chutneys, pickles, etc to account for that.