> Altered versions of e.g. Italian food (e.g. pasta carbonara with cream, deep dish pizza, submarine sandwiches, chicken parmesan) ... don't cause similar reactions.

Like hell they don't! Most of your examples are just ignorable new inventions, but the reinterpretation of spaghetti carbonara (not pasta carbonara, you heathen) as a shitty cream sauce? I'll go to the mat to decry that horrendously disgusting perversion.

Anyone that prefers that hot mess probably also puts ranch dressing on everything, including pizza, and thinks Velveeta "queso" is delicious.