I'm Italian and yesterday I was in Berlin. During lunch I was chatting with a bunch of expats and none of them could name a tipical german dish except bratwurst and kartoffelnsalat.
I can clearly see that there is a huge gap among countries and cultures in the importance they give to food, to its quality, variety and relevance for their identity. Clearly italians went out of control with it but I believe French, Greeks (removing kebab has a totally different meaning for them) and maybe chinese are really close to us.
Why is that? Are there theories that connects these facts to elements of economical, cultural or political nature?
I have a vague idea of how most of the culinary tradition got killed with the urbanization in the last two centuries and there's still an active work in rediscovering ancient dishes and preparations that got lost and maybe survive in small local realities. Before the industrial revolution there was a comparable variety in every rural environment across Europe and the world? Or there was a pre-existing gap?
I'm a bit confused by your question. It sounds like what happened was that you were eating lunch with some Germans who were trying to name some "typical" German foods, and they came up with only two examples. But that doesn't seem like enough information to then say that traditional foods don't play an important role in German society and identity today.
What do you mean when you say "culinary tradition"? Do you mean the process of cooking food at home, rather than going to restaurants to eat?