Do you drink your daily glass of milk? A healthy drink, especially for children, milk, one might assume, has always been easily available to us once we mastered animal husbandry. But, if you come to think of it, there were other problems that people of the past faced with respect to milk.
Before pasteurisation and refrigeration became common, there was a time when milk was more of a child’s food as it was difficult to keep it fresh and preserve it safely for over a day or two. It was only after Gail Borden came up with a process of producing condensed milk that it could be stored purely without refrigeration, and even be distributed over distances unimaginable previously.
Passion to invent
Born in New York in 1801, Borden had little in the form of formal schooling and didn’t undergo scientific training of any sort. He did farming and raised livestock at Texas, where he was one of the earliest settlers, and even founded a newspaper called Telegraph and Texas Register. If there was one thing that rivalled his entrepreneurial spirit, it was his willingness to research and invent in order to make our daily lives better.
One of Borden’s first attempts came in 1844 – the year he lost his wife and a four-year-old son to yellow fever. Borden thought hard and long about the disease, 60 years before it was discovered that mosquitoes carried the fever, and believed that he could eradicate the disease with a ludicrous refrigerating scheme for which no one volunteered.
Next came his “terraqueous machine”, an amphibian vehicle that he had envisioned. By combining a sailboat and a wagon, he was hoping for a machine that could travel both on land and water with equal ease. This time around, he even got co-passengers to try out his vehicle, only for his contraption to instantly capsize in the water.
No takers for his biscuits
While these two attempts were utter failures, his meat biscuits were practical and yet didn’t succeed. Borden dehydrated 120 pounds of beef to 10 pounds, mixed the residue with flour and then kneaded it into biscuits and baked them.
Even though it was utilised by people heading to California during the gold rush and even by those who went on an Arctic expedition, it never became a financial success as it was widely considered unpalatable.
Despite failing time and time again, Borden never gave up. He had long held a strong notion that any form of food could be condensed and preserved. On seeing children die aboard his steamer while returning from a trip to England in 1851 and realising that these deaths were a result of the milk consumed, Borden decided to try and work with milk.
Produces condensed milk
Borden wasn’t the only one trying to prevent milk from spoiling at this time. But while most others resorted to cooking it in the open, Borden believed that heating it in a vacuum pan might serve his purpose better. The usage of the vacuum pan meant that there was no extreme heat, allowing for gradual evaporation as the pan warmed the milk slowly and evenly.
He applied for a patent for his process of producing condensed milk and received the same on August 19, 1856. He set up a milk condensing factory and soon got to business. A stickler for hygiene, Borden set high standards not only for those working in his factory, but also those who sold their milk to him to be processed.
When the Civil War came, condensed milk was included as part of the field ration. Even though Borden could never meet the Army’s growing demand with his production, the Civil War further lent to the growing sales of condensed milk and the dairy business was never the same again.
Borden died in 1874, aged 72, but not before he had succeeded in what he had set out to do early in his life – make life better for everyone.
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Meet Elsie the cow
* In 1936, the Borden Dairy Company, the company that Borden founded, developed a cartoon cow as a mascot to symbolise the “perfect dairy product”.
* This cartoon cow, called Elsie the cow, first appeared as one of four cartoon cows in a magazine advertisement, before she went solo.
* Apart from being an advertiser’s dream and one of the most recognised product logos in the United States of America, Elsie also appeared in 107 countries across the world.
