Salt pork three times a day was regarded as an essential part of American diet. In the “Chain-bearer,” Cooper described what he called American poverty as it existed in 1784. “As for bread,” said the mother, “I count that for nothing. We always have bread and potatoes enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way when the mother can see the bottom of the pork-barrel. Give me the children that’s raised on good sound pork afore all the game in the country. Game’s good as a relish, and so’s bread; but pork is the staff of life.... My children I calkerlate to bring up on pork.” Many years before the time to which Cooper referred, Poor Richard asked: “Maids of America, who gave you bad teeth?” and supplied the answer: “Hot soupings and frozen apples.” Franklin’s question and answer were repeated in a wider sense by many writers, but none was so emphatic as Volney:-- “I will venture to say,” declared Volney, “that if a prize were proposed for the scheme of a regimen most calculated to injure the stomach, the teeth, and the health in general, no better could be invented than that of the Americans. In the morning at breakfast they deluge their stomach with a quart of hot water, impregnated with tea, or so slightly with coffee that it is mere colored water; and they swallow, almost without chewing, hot bread, half baked, toast soaked in butter, cheese of the fattest kind, slices of salt or hung beef, ham, etc., all which are nearly insoluble. At dinner they have boiled pastes under the name of puddings, and the fattest are esteemed the most delicious; all their sauces, even for roast beef, are melted butter; their turnips and potatoes swim in hog’s lard, butter, or fat; under the name of pie or pumpkin, their pastry is nothing but a greasy paste, never sufficiently baked. To digest these viscous substances they take tea almost instantly after dinner, making it so strong that it is absolutely bitter to the taste, in which state it affects the nerves so powerfully that even the English find it brings on a more obstinate restlessness than coffee. Supper again introduces salt meats or oysters. As Chastellux says, the whole day passes in heaping indigestions on one another; and to give tone to the poor, relaxed, and wearied stomach, they drink Madeira, rum, French brandy, gin, or malt spirits, which complete the ruin of the nervous system.”