Borden's Meat Biscuit
Articles from: Scientific American (1850)
6 Feb 1850
LIST OF PATENTS CLAIMS
ISSUED FROM THE UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE
For the week ending February 9, 1830.
To Gail Borden, Jr., of Galveston, Texas, for preparation of portable
Soup Bread.
I do not claim the extract of
flesh made into what is known as portable soup; but I claim the new and
useful manufacture of desiccated soup-bread, formed of the concentrated
extract of alimentary animal substances, combined with vegetable flour
or meal, made into cakes and baked into bread, in the manner
substantially as herein described, for the purpose set forth.
[This is one of the most
valuable inventions that has ever been brought forward, and will be the
means of enabling travellers and mariners to enjoy both vegetable and
flesh in a most dainty dish at any moment, and what is better, a
traveller may carry a month’s provisions in a small tin case.
It is now used exclusively by Texan vessels sailing from Galveston.]
From:
Scientific American, Volume 5, Issue 22, page 174.
23 Mar 1850
New Article of Food - Meat Biscuit.
Some time since we noticed a
new kind of Meat Biscuit, or “Portable Desiccated Soup
Bread,” invented by Mr. Gail Borden, Jr., a highly
respectable citizen of Galveston, Texas. The discovery being fully
secured by a patent recently granted, we will give a brief but clear
description of it, as it is an invention of the first importance, both
to our own country, and it may be said, to the whole human race. The
nature of this discovery consists in preserving the concentrated
nutritious properties of flesh meat of any kind, combining it with
flour and baking it into biscuits. One pound of this bread contains the
extract of more than five pounds of the best meat—(containing
its usual proportion of bone)—and one ounce of it will make a
pint of rich soup. Biscuits by Mr. Borden’s process may be
made of beef, veal, fowl's flesh, oysters, &c., and thus in a
compact form the very essence of agricultural products, fitted for the
traveller or mariner, or for the dwellers in distant cities, may be
transported by sea or land, from distant rural districts, where flesh
meat is comparatively cheap.
In a letter to Dr. Ashbel
Smith, Mr. Borden thus relates the way he made this discovery:
"I was endeavoring to make
some portable meat glue (the common kind known) for some friends who
were going to California—I had set up a large kettle and
evaporating pan, and after two days labour I reduced one hundred and
twenty pounds of veal to ten pounds of extract, of a consistence like
melted glue and molasses; the weather was warm and rainy, it being the
middle of July. I could not dry it either in or out of the house, and
unwilling to lose my labour, it occured to me, after various
expedients, to mix the article with good flour and bake it. To my great
satisfaction, the bread was found to contain all the primary principles
of meat, and with a better flavor than simple veal soup, thickened with
flour in the ordinary method.
This process of mixing and
baking, I found to be easily and quickly done, and to answer the double
purpose of concentrating in the same cake, the nutritious properties of
animal and vegetable food, so essential to the healthful sustenance of
man. This extract of animal flesh may also be combined with corn, or
other vegetable meal, and for some marine purposes, I intend to employ
the potato and other ascorbutic vegetables, having farinaceous
qualities, to desiccate he extract."
Dr. Smith., a gentleman of
scientific reputation, has communicated a paper on the subject to Prof.
Bache, President of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. He says,—" I have several times eaten of the soup
made of this meat biscuit,” and thus describes the manner of
making it:
“The nutritive
portions of beef or other meat, immediately on its being slaughtered,
are, by long boiling, separated from the bones and fibrous and
cartilaginous matters: the water holding the nutritious matters in
solution, is evaporated to a considerable degree of
spissitude—this is then made into a dough with firm wheaten
flour, the dough rolled and cut into a form of biscuits, is then
desiccated, or baked in an oven at a moderate heat. The cooking, both
of the flour and the animal food, is thus complete. The meat biscuits
thus prepared have the appearance and firmness of the nicest crackers
or navy bread, being as dry, and breaking or pulverizing as readily as
the most carefully made table crackers. It is preserved in the form of
biscuit, or reduced to coarse flour or meal. It is best kept in tin
cases hermetically soldered up ; the exclusion of air is not important,
humidity alone is to be guarded against.
I have seen some of the
biscuit perfectly fresh and sound that have been hanging in sacks since
last July in Mr. Borden’s kitchen: and it is to be borne in
mind, that in this climate articles contract moisture and moulder
promptly, unless kept dry by artificial heat.
For making soup of the meat
biscuit, a batter is first made of the pulverized biscuit and cold
water—this is stirred into boilling water—the
boiling is continued some ten or twenty minutes—salt, pepper,
and other condiments are added to suit the taste, and the soup is ready
for the table. I have eaten the soup several times,—it has
the fresh, lively, clean, and thoroughly done or cooked flavor that
used to form the charm of the soups of the Rocher de Cancale. It is
perfectly free from that vapid
unctuous stale taste which characterizes all prepared soups I have
heretofore tried at sea and elsewhere. Those chemical changes in food
which, in common language, we denominate cooking, have been perfectly
effected in Mr. Borden’s biscuit by the long continued
boiling at first, and the subsequent baking or roasting. The soup
prepared of it is thus ready to be absorbed into the system without
loss, and without tedious digestion in the alimentary canal, and is in
the highest degree nutritious and invigorating.
The paramount excellence of
Mr. B.’s discovery, appears to me to consist in this, that it
is a meat biscuit—it is meat and bread.—Human life
may be sustained, as we all know, on a diet of a single kind, but the
highest degree of corporeal and mental strength and health can long be
maintained only by the use of both vegetable and animal food;
especially when labors, fatigues and privations are to be undergone. I
believe there does not exist in nature or art the same amount of
nutriment in as small bulk or weight, and as well adapted to support,
efficiently and permanently, mental and physical vigor, as is
concentrated in the meat biscuit in question. One ounce of the biscuit
meal makes a pint of rich, invigorating animal and farinaceous soup by
its combination with water, all the requirements of a good food are
answered, animal and vegetable aliment in a sufficient bulky form.
We publish the remarks of Dr. Smith, as
explanative of the process of making it, and to show the opinion of a
scientific man on the subject. We have also partaken of this soup
bread, and consider it to be a most excellent discovery, one invaluable
to the geologist, surveyor, traveller and voyager. Two pounds of it
will supply one man for a week, and fourteen pounds will support him
for a month. It provides the means of making the journey through the wilderness, to the
promised land on the borders of the Pacific, comparatively easy.
From:
Scientific American, Volume 5, Issue 27, page 213.
The Scientific American periodical was published in New York.
More articles:
Gail Borden - A biography
published in
1866 from A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860...
Borden's meat biscuit patent was titled "Preparation of Portable Soup-Bread," issued as U.S. Patent No. 7,066 on 5 Feb 1850.
Military use of the meat biscuit was also recognized as highly suitable for meal rations, and was favorably compared in the Scientific American periodical against the difficulties experienced by other countries having to preserve meats for their military needs.
Awards were presented
for Borden's meat biscuit at exhibitions both home and abroad. In
England, at the London Great Exhibition, first class medals recognized
Borden's invention, in the company of other American winners such as
C.H. McCormick for his "Virginia Reaper,” and Charles Goodyear
for his “India Rubber
Fabrics.”
Borden's condensed milk was his next great invention,
which launched his very successful diary company supplying his Eagle
brand milk to cities distant from farm supply, and was also recorded in
several Scientific American articles.
The condensed milk patent gives Borden's description
of his method in U.S. Patent No. 15,553 issued 19 Aug 1856 - the first
effective commercial process in the U.S. for condensing and
preserving milk.
Borden's fruit juice concentrating patent shows his continuing interest
in preserving more types of food detailed in U.S. Patent 35,919, issued
22 July 1862, titled "Improvement in Concentrating and Preserving For
Use Cider and Other Juices of Fruits."
Competitors joined the market as shown in this Manufacturer and Builder article from 1878.
A quotation - the epitaph
from Gail Borden's gravestone.
