"Down with President Bush's thighs!" says Moscow. "We've eaten enough of them and they're no good. We're not going to cook them again."

If this sounds like cannibalism, it's only the political kind. In the days of U.S. President George Bush Sr., the Russian government started buying dirt-cheap chicken thighs from the United States to feed its hungry nation. Around 1990, Russia was on the verge of famine. The government leased the land of collective farms to anyone willing to plant vegetables there, and for at least two summers professors and dentists were busy taking care of potatoes and beetroot. Real famine never arrived, but the cheap and abundant chicken thighs did help cushion the period of transition from communism to a market economy. The grateful Russians lovingly christened the imported meat "Bush thighs."

The thighs were a blue color and, when boiled, disintegrated into purple pieces. But they tasted all right; and, in any case, back in 1990 nobody expected them to taste like pheasant, partridge or, for that matter, caviar. They were chicken for the poor, which almost all Russians were in those days.