Miss Emily Marian Colling of Oil City, Pennsylvania was a student of Mrs. Rorer, the renown Victorian cookbook author. When in 1899 the Pennsylvania Chautauqua at Mt Gretna replaced Rorer with Colling there was a roaring outcry from Mrs. Rorer. Although Mrs. Rorer had other engagements, she had a cottage in Mt Gretna and showed up unannounced in the first row of the new teacher’s class and scolded the new teacher Miss Collings as to the boiling temperature of milk. The next class the jealous Mrs. Rorer brought a conspiring friend and sat in the front seats ignoring the lecturer and gabbing to intimidate the new teacher. Miss Colling, always the lady, continued her little talk to housewives about HAMBURG STEAK. Miss Colling was a competent and entertaining speaker who made herself very popular while Mrs. Rorer’s humor narrowed. Time is forgiving and Mrs. Rorer’s name is known by cookbook collectors today while many have not heard of Miss Emily Marian Colling of Oil City.
Colling’s father was born in England, and her mother from Ireland. She was born in Fairbow, [Faribault] Minnesota, and the family moved further and further east as years advanced. She lived in Oil City, Penn when this cookbook was published. She never married. For 21 years Emily and her unmarried sister Florence lived together in a fashionable Victorian-housed neighborhood in Plainfield, New Jersey, the same city as their brother Arthur and his family. Beginning in 1899 Miss Colling was lecturer and principal of the cooking school at the Pennsylvania Chautauqua, Mt Gretna, and again at the Maryland Chautauqua at Mountain Lake Park. Besides writing this book, Popular Dishes, a Collection of Recipes as Used By Emily Marian Colling in her Lectures, the above data is all of what we have of her life and career, and we have not found a portrait of her yet.
Here is the recipe from this cookbook that Mrs. Rorer tried to inhibit from being taught by Miss Colling:
HAMBURG STEAK
Put one pound of round steak through a meat chopper, then add to it one level teaspoonful of salt, one-eighth teaspoonful of pepper, on-half teaspoonful of onion juice and a level tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Form into six steaks, being careful not to have the edges thinner than the center of the steak. Broil or sauté and serve with tomato sauce.
