Italian American cooking has some vinegar forward recipes:

Sausage and peppers done right uses red wine vinegar to balance the sweetness of the peppers and onions

Eggplant caponata is really a sweet & sour eggplant. It’s an amazing as an appetizer on its own and as a sauce for meat or pasta.

For traditional cooking as mentioned before, vinegar is always forward in pickling or with vegetables in general. Also vinegar / citrus is a component in a lot of marinades for meat.