For a spicy take on French Fries, try chili salt. We don’t like most blends from Asia, especially when packed with msg. But we relish this spicy shake from Australia’s Chillin’ out in W.A. Wow! They also make an “ultralicious” chilli spice mix rub, blending coriander seed, garlic flakes, peppercorns, cloves, chili, cumin, onion flake, celery seed, salt and basil. www.chillifreak.com

Is your mascarpone truly Italian? Using a simple DNA kit, 2 NYC students revealed potentially massive fraud on our grocery shelves. A shocking 11 out of 66 products randomly purchased in Manhattan were fake. Isotope radiation is another technique newly employed by food sleuths, and can detect farmed vs. wild fish. In the US, such deception is covered by the FDA, but that overworked agency focuses most attention these days on contamination.

Cat and dog consumption is under threat from Chinese animal welfare proponents. There’s an uproar in Chinese press these days after an animal rights law circulated in a draft last year. Seems China’s upwardly mobile classes have pets, so now look at animal cruelty differently. We liked Fuchsia Dunlop’s explanation that the word for animal and living thing in Chinese language are distinct – but that far from justifies cruel practices like overcrowding, slow slaughter, and beating an animal to tenderize its meat. (It doesn’t). Beijing households have a one dog policy, with laws stipulating no taller than 35 cm/14 inches.

Britons are happier in the kitchen than their French counterparts. Or so claims The Observer, after results for British Food Fortnight, an initiative placing professional chefs in schools. Half the English respondents under 35 said they either “loved” or “really loved” cooking, compared with only 40% of French in the same age group. Australia’s second annual installment of television competition Master Chef topped all ratings chart earlier this, making it the most popular program on air. Junior Masterchef soon followed, attracting half the other’s share, but still well received.

Neapolitan pizza is now recognized with a coveted “traditional specialty guaranteed” label from the EU. This means the dish must conform to traditional ingredients and cooking methods: ripe San Marzano tomatoes, circumference no more than 35 cm/14 in with a 1 to 2 cm/ ½ -3/4 in crust, and thin base -- just 1/3 cm thick. Only hand-stretched dough is permitted, plus cooking in a wood fired oven on a stone slab. While the award protects Neapolitan pizza from shoddy foreign imitations, it doesn’t have to be made in Naples. Pizza, in contemporary form, originated in 8th cent Naples, while Margherita came much later in 1889, to honor of the Savoy Queen, with colors reflecting the newly unified Italian state: red tomatoes, white mozzarella and green basil.