Fast-food copycat, street meat problems, Nelson Mandela’s eating habits

• A Long Island man claims to have cracked KFC’s notoriously well-guarded fried chicken recipe. In fact, Ron Douglas—who until 2007 was a finance manager at a major Wall Street firm—has spent the past two years recreating a plethora of top-secret fast-food recipes and posting them on his Web site. [New York Post]

• Life ain’t easy for the proprietors of Toronto’s first ethnic food carts. Two months after the much-touted (but somewhat mismanaged) Toronto à la Cart pilot project began, several of the vendors are still working second jobs, and three are temporarily out of business while the city finds new locations for them. One has even refinanced her house to pay her start-up costs. Bad summer weather hasn’t helped matters, either. [Toronto Star]

• Sure, he was instrumental in bringing democracy to South Africa, and his name is synonymous with all things virtuous, but what journalist Anna Trapido really wants to know is this: what does Nelson Mandela like to eat? The result is the oddly conceived but potentially fascinating “gastro-political biography” Hunger for Freedom: The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela. [Guardian]

• Just when we thought the whole “gourmet cupcake” trend couldn’t get any more ridiculous, along comes California’s Cupcake Vineyards. The wine doesn’t taste like cupcakes; rather, it aims to “invoke the feeling that you get when you reward yourself” with an indulgent treat. [Food Section]

• In 2007, some of Canada’s biggest food companies promised to restrict junk food ads during kids’ programming. They kept their promise, with many ceasing advertising and others advertising only their more nutritious products. Ads or no ads, however, child obesity rates continue to rise. [Globe and Mail]