THE MINIMALIST; Crossing Over to the Dark Side

Correction Appended

I CANNOT pinpoint exactly when I began asking servers in restaurants whether a chicken dish was made with dark or white meat -- and began declining to order it if it was white meat.

I only know that I got tired of relentlessly overcooked, chalky, cottony meat and realized that my preference at home for cooking thighs or whole legs had become, for me, a global predilection.

But according to surveys, I am in the minority: Americans in general express a two-to-one preference for white chicken meat over dark.

Given that we generally like salty, fatty, highly flavored food, I do not know what that figure reflects, other than a cosmetic avoidance of fat. (Breasts are undeniably lower in fat than legs, though legs are not especially high.) The truth is that when you want a blank canvas just a shade more substantial than tofu, you can do no better than the boneless, skinless chicken breast, especially when mass-produced.

Yet about 30 years ago, before mechanized boning of chicken became common, legs outsold breasts. Dedicated home cooks removed the meat from the breasts themselves and used it as an inexpensive alternative to the nearly equally innocuous veal cutlet.

Now boneless, skinless breast has become the paradigm of white meat and the meat of choice for many Americans, a staple at every fast-food operation and national chain, where chicken breasts often appear in salads and pasta as well as main courses. (McDonald's reformulated its chicken nuggets to use all white meat a few months ago.) It is also the 800-pound gorilla of the best restaurants, where it is often served despite the preferences of the chef.