Arriving in Texas in 1829, Gail Borden was a relentless entrepreneur. He had a diversified portfolio of inventions, all attempts at harnessing uncaptured energy. One thing he lacked, however, was natural salesmanship.
In Episode 5 of The Engines of Texanity we learn how Borden’s initial failures lead to the success of condensed milk.
A founding father of Galveston, Borden was well-known and eccentric enough for people to take an interest in him. One night in 1847, he invited the townspeople for an impromptu midnight dinner where he served pressed meat patties made from animal byproducts. The culinary treat was meant as a cost-effective food product for the poor. His guests politely ate and did their best not to vomit.
Promising some after dinner entertainment, Borden unveiled his “terraqueous” machine, an aquatic wagon meant for travel on land or sea using wind power. After towing it to the beach, Borden and a number of volunteers climbed aboard for the maiden voyage. To everyone’s delight the wagon sailed across the shoreline, gaining speed.
Without warning, Borden piloted the wagon straight into the surf. For a moment, the craft glided over the water — until the terrified passengers impulsively rushed to the landward side, capsizing it.
These failures forced Borden to refine his thinking, so he began to focus more on condensing energy rather than harnessing it.
At some point, a Comanche trader introduced Borden to a superfood consisting of pulverized, dried buffalo meat, dried crushed hominy and mesquite beans. This nonperishable, energy-rich recipe was a hybrid of the plains Indians’ pemmican — a mixture of dried meat, fruit and tallow — and pinole, a ground meal made from toasted corn and mesquite beans.
Borden filed a patent for the superfood recipe and in 1850, he produced “meat biscuit” samples that he submitted to the U.S. Army. Allowing a soldier to carry months of rations in a lightweight package, it was a revolution in logistics. The Army enthusiastically ordered more. Borden was awarded a first-class medal for his innovation at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London but soon learned soldiers eating the biscuit were complaining of nausea, headaches and other problems. The Army canceled its orders, leaving Borden financially ruined.
On the ship ride home, Borden, still fixated with the possibilities unlocked with the meat biscuit, noticed the cows onboard had gotten sick and stopped giving milk. In turn, milk-reliant infants onboard starved. Borden heard opportunity calling. He would deploy his ingenuity to the production of condensed milk. Based on the belief that milk, like blood, was a living fluid, Borden’s idea was to boil the milk in a vacuum, keeping all the life force together and any invading microbial forces out.
The guiding principle of Borden’s process was protecting the fluid from all outside contaminants. To ensure quality-tasting milk, cows were not fed turnips and their barns were cleaned daily. Before milking, the cow’s udders were thoroughly washed. The milk was kept cool while transported to the factory, where it was transferred to large vats and heated to specific temperatures, and then condensed a quarter of its original volume. It was a level of industrial precision never applied to food production before, preceding the discoveries of pasteurization, the germ theory of disease and the subsequent emphasis on sanitation.
Borden moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1858 and successfully launched his Eagle Brand company. Over the next few years, his daily sales of condensed milk to the Army grew from 300 quarts to 15,000 quarts. When the Civil War was over, demand didn’t falter. Returning soldiers had acquired a taste for condensed milk, and Borden was selling 165,000 quarts per day.
Condensed milk was among the first and most successful innovations in processed food, which, from the standpoint of 20th-century Texan farmers and ranchers, helped level the price differentials between producers and consumers. It removed the costs of perishability and the disadvantages of distance under which Texas agriculture had labored for so long. It is a prime example of the recurring pattern of Texan innovation.
Borden died in Texas in 1874 and his body was returned for final burial in New York City. His gravestone today carries perhaps the most beautifully Texan epigraph: “I tried and failed. I tried again and again, and succeeded.”
Click below to listen to Episode 5 of The Engines of Texanity.
