Before Condensed Milk, Gail Borden Invented This Strange, Meaty Food

Inventor Gail Borden embodied the phrase, "If at first you don't succeed, try again." While Borden's creation of condensed milk helped make canned food popular, the hit came after a string of failures. One, a meat biscuit, showed initial signs of promise but ended up putting Borden's bank account in the red. Borden wasn't trained to be an inventor, but he spent much of his life looking to solve problems. He built contraptions meant to traverse both water and land and a moveable bath house for women wanting to bathe in open water without being looked at. The meat biscuit came from his intention to develop portable food for soldiers and travelers to easily eat. 

The idea of boiling beef down into a syrup, mixing it with wheat flour, and baking or frying the dough into a cracker-like biscuit had potential. The meat biscuit, also known as Soup-Bread, could keep for years, and Borden claimed that one pound contained the nourishment of 5 pounds of good meat. In rehydrated soup form, one ounce of the biscuit yielded a pint of broth. When presented at London's Great Exhibition in 1851, the meat biscuit claimed a gold medal. It was named one of the most important discoveries of the time, and the idea that a month's provisions could be kept in one small tin was an appealing feature.

Encouraged, Borden started a manufacturing plant in Texas and relocated to New York to make connections with traders who might distribute his meat biscuits around the world. The biscuits never found footing, however. The U.S. Army called them unpalatable and said they failed to appease hunger cravings, even going so far as to attribute headaches and nausea to the meat biscuits. Consumers were equally disenchanted with the idea, even if the promise sounded practical.

Borden went bankrupt in 1852 after pouring his fortune into manufacturing the meat biscuits. But the failure didn't dampen his spirits, and set him up for a more enduring legacy. Three years later, Borden condensed milk by using a copper vacuum pan, borrowing inspiration from the Shakers' fruit preservation methods. Condensed milk went on to become a runaway success, and his finances were restored. The portable, shelf-stable nourishment Borden had been chasing with the meat biscuit was there all along — it just needed to come from a cow and not a batch of boiled beef.