Chicken meat discrimination

Via John Durant, I never thought to wonder what happens to all the dark meat?

There's no question that Americans overwhelmingly prefer white chicken meat to dark. We eat chicken almost 10 times a month on average... but on less than two of those occasions do we choose chicken legs, thighs, or drumsticks.

The historical answer is: to Russia.

... in the 1980s, when chicken consumption in the United States increased at a phenomenal rate, the poultry industry needed new outlets to absorb the growing numbers of discarded legs.

It was most fortuitous, then, that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, resulting in the relaxation of trade restrictions that had hindered commerce with the formerly Communist state. U.S. chicken exporters, eager to exploit this fresh market, were able to underprice virtually all other animal protein produced in Russia, and American dark meat flooded the country. The chicken legs became so popular that locals endearingly nicknamed them "Bush legs," after President Bush Sr.

The complication now is that Russia seems determined to put up quality-related trade barriers (spurious, to hear American exporters tell the tale), so poultry producers need either a new market abroad, or a revolution in domestic tastes.

I've always preferred dark meat, so I'm raring to go to the grocery store and pick up some discounted bone-in chicken thighs. Although I wonder if they're apples-to-apples cheaper than the whole rotisserie chickens which are currently my favorite (and stupidly cheap compared to other types of meat).