Book excerpt: Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), frequently referred to as Miss Leslie, was an American author of popular cookbooks during the nineteenth century. She also wrote household management books, etiquette books, novels, short stories and articles for magazines and newspapers. Leslie's Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1837), sold at least 150,000 copies and stayed in print into the 1890s, making it the most popular cookbook of the century. It was a generalized work, written to appeal to all classes and to city or rural dwellers from all regions. Some of her nine cookbooks were more specialized. Using the French she learned as a child, Leslie translated French recipes for Domestic French Cookery (1832) and wrote an entire book on cornmeal recipes, The Indian Meal Book (1847).