Bush Legs

Russian nickname for American chicken products.

“Of all the disputes great and petty that have marred relations between Russia and the United States over the years, chicken has provoked more than its share of angst and animosity,” Michael Schwirtz reported from Moscow for The Times:

The United States under the first Bush administration flooded Russia with American chicken as food aid in the early 1990s, products that Russians came to call “Bush legs.”

These stocks – mostly thighs and other parts, not many drumsticks – helped feed hungry Russians reeling from an economic collapse. They also came to symbolize the humiliation of a once-great nation reduced to dependence on food handouts.

According to Schwirtz, the Russian government has now banned the import of American chicken over the failure of American producers to comply with Russian food safety rules:

The move might cause poultry prices here to spike, but there was nevertheless a tinge of national pride last week when Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin told Russian poultry producers that Russia was no longer dependent on Bush legs.