What the rise of chicken thighs says about America
This is a Yay as far as I’m concerned. I have preferred the dark meat for ages. My usual order when I make the trek to Frenchy’s, Houston’s Creole Fried Chicken chain, is the 8 or 12 piece dark bucket and then I feast for several days. Most common order at Popeye’s is 2 pc dark.
Original article on WSJ - for those with a subscription since the MSN free link will expire.
I know this is about American food culture. But I’ll get my two penn’orth in early then go away.
I come from a generation of Britons for whom chicken was an expensive food - the sort of thing you might eat on a special family occasion, like Easter. The general etiquette applying, at least in our family, was that the white meat was served to women/girls and the brown to men/boys. So I’ve always generally eaten the brown meat. As I got older and was able to compare, not least in cooking it for myself, is bits like the thighs are tastier and, indeed, more forgiving in the cooking process.
I’m a big fan of thighs as well, always have been. (and as a kid, give me the drumstick anytime). I still prefer bone in/skin on, which sometimes isn’t as easy to find as boneless skinless thighs. Thankfully I have many supermarkets around so if one is out, I can just swing into another.
A couple of interesting bits from the article (at least for me) -
“For decades, chicken thighs rated so low in the national pecking order that U.S. poultry producers unloaded much of their dark-meat yield to hungry markets abroad in Russia, Mexico, and across Asia.”
“Back in 2007, even as the average American ate chicken about nine times a month, only two of those instances involved dark meat at all, according to an annual industry study conducted by the National Chicken Council.”
“Thanks to a four-piece combo involving immigration from regions that embrace dark meat, along with evolving culinary culture, economic forces and technological advances, chicken thighs are ubiquitous.”
I never thought about the technological aspect. From the article, this has to do with the modifying of deboning machines for breasts to be able to debone dark meat.
interesting read.
Sunshine loves boneless/skinless thighs. They hardly ever go on sale, though.
This is one of her favorite meals – Mayo - Cheddar Thighs.
Chicken thighs are just about the only chicken parts we buy when we’re not getting a whole chicken.
In Germany it’s more typical to find the whole legs, so I found it weird that the thighs are sold separately in the US.
I’m pretty good at keeping (BISO) chicken breasts nice n moist, so they have their place in my heart & my kitchen, too, but there’s nothing like cutting into a crispy, golden-skinned thigh and savoring that tender, juicy meat. Then gnawing off the bones 
I grew up eating whole roast chicken, legs, and quarters.
I give the breast meat from our turkey at Thanksgiving to the neighbours.
While I can’t avoid breast meat when ordering some Italian, Greek and Asian chicken dishes at restaurants, I rarely buy breast meat on purpose for cooking.
Now I want fried chicken. 
I can hit up a KKC and a Popeye’s within a 5 minute drive of each other. Bonchon I’d have to go the opposite direction. Have had KKC, haven’t had the other two. Haven’t eaten at a Chik-fil-a in years, for several reasons.
I buy BISO chicken thighs whenever I see them on sale - easy to cook, portion-sized for me as a singleton. But I still buy the BISO chicken breasts and do well enough keeping them moist and flavorful.
We’ve got three chicken places on the main street of the village. Three. FFS.
LOL Are they big chains, or more local one-offs?
