Condensed Milk

"It’s a righteous emulsifier," says chef Alex Stupak of WD-50, referring to sweetened condensed milk, as reported by Julia Moskin in the New York Times (3/3/10). Alex likes to use condensed milk to make "doughnut fillings and even a tart-sweet mayonnaise." While most Americans probably don’t associate condensed milk with gourmet recipes, it certainly has come a long way since 1856. That’s when it was introduced to the U.S. by Gail Borden, who combined "vacuum pressure, heat and added sugar (to) produce a dairy product that is nearly indestructible, with a shelf life of years."

Borden, who also "patented a prototype of a complete nutrition bar, which he called a ‘meat biscuit’ … made his fortune supplying condensed milk to the Union Army in the Civil War. It was airlifted into Berlin in the 1940s, and more recently opened up Asia as a major market for American milk." His inspiration was "a series of ‘swill milk’ scandals that revealed the true contents of much of the milk then for sale in American cities: chalk powder, molasses and vermin." Most Americans still prefer fresh milk, but Borden’s invention has remained popular in Latin America and Asia.

"It’s hard to explain the relationship people have with it in Latin America," says Leticia Moreinos Schwartz, a cooking teacher who grew up in Brazil. She uses it to make fudge for a Brazilian treat called brigadeiros. It’s also popular in the Philippines, Jamaica and Hong Kong, where its commonly used in desserts, and it is "a key ingredient in Thai iced tea and in Vietnamese coffee." Then there’s Victoria Belanger, a photographer who uses condensed milk to create — and then photograph — spectacular jellied desserts, with colorful, transparent gelatin floating in the opaque milk (image). "Sweetened condensed milk solved a lot of problems for me," she says.