Maïté, who hosted successful cooking shows for fifteen years on television, died at the age of 86. Find his most famous recipes.
Maïté, the most famous cook on French television, has died at the age of 86. Its disappearance marks the end of an era, one where French culinary shows offered recipes such as ostrich steak, Coypu terrine or even the king size burger with duck breast.
The former SNCF employee with a lilting southwest accent, who co-hosted the very popular show The Kitchen of the Musketeers from 1983 to 1997 on France 3, delivered his legendary recipes in books sold thousands of copies. Here are five of the most legendary.
• How to eat an ortolan
October 3, 1987. Maïté shows viewers how to eat an ortolan, a small bird that has become a protected species. In this sequence that has remained legendary, the host immediately announces the color: “When you have the ortolan in your mouth, all the fat drips out.”
To enjoy an ortolan, it is therefore best to hide behind a napkin, she explains. “We can concentrate more. We can enjoy ourselves, appreciate it, really taste it, see what's in our mouth. It's something we can't have often and we want to make the most of it.”
Taking her burning ortolan with her fingertips, Maïté brings it to her mouth and details the process: “I put it against the cheek. It is hot (…) I put my finger (…) And there the thing “we shouldn't do it and it's not very pretty, I start to take him and suck his behind”, laughs the host.
“Good mother, if you could taste what I eat! It's good… Oh how good it is. My God, how I wish you were in my place. If you could have what I ai”, continues the cook, whispering. “It’s disgusting, I’m sure, to eat that in front of you.”
• King size burger with duck breast
January 7, 1992. For the 100th of The Kitchen of the MusketeersMaïté and her co-host Micheline promise “an exceptional” and “unpublished” recipe, “impossible to find in any cookbook”: the king size burger with duck breast.
To do this, Maïté recommends a “little” country bread sliced in half, salad leaves, gizzards, strips of XXL duck breast and hot foie gras. “We close the lid and we eat!”, she sums up.
“It’s the hamburger that shows the good health of the Landais,” exclaims Micheline.
• The eel as a sailor
June 12, 1992. Maïté must prepare an eel as a matelote. Downside: the eel is still alive and struggling. Four times, the host knocks out the animal to cook it. “Come on, my darling, you won’t get my skin,” she told him.
“To kill them, I'm going to knock it out but otherwise we have to incise it all around and then we peel it,” explains Maïté again before taking her pestle and then her knife. “You'll see, she won't suffer like that.”
With the help of her co-host Micheline Banzet, Maïté then attempts to skin the animal. The two women, who encounter some difficulties, burst into laughter. “Come on Micheline!”, encourages Maïté. “It’s fun!”
• Coypu terrine
October 18, 1994. Maité prepares in The Musketeers' Kitchen two recipes based on coypu, “the marsh hare” known to be particularly harmful in the Dordogne: a coypu stew and a coypu terrine.
Grabbing a dead coypu, Maïté shows, cleaver in hand, how to cut off the animal's head and then dismember it. “Oh, it’s tender,” comments Micheline Banzet, his co-host. “We cut off his head, which we obviously put in the trash,” adds Maïté.
“You are told that it is a harmful animal, but do not poison it, even if it wreaks havoc in your home,” concludes Micheline. “And among those watching today, there are many who have trouble with coypu. So try cooking them.” And Maïté adds: “Everything is expensive anyway. There, it’s for nothing. So take advantage of it.”
• The ostrich steak
December 27, 1994. You don't just make omelettes with eggs and Maïté proves it with a recipe for ostrich steak. “We can use the fat (for) beauty products,” she explains before praising the animal’s “thighs.” “Look at this meat, how red it is! It looks like beef!”
“I ate it, it’s succulent. It’s tender, it’s buttery,” assures the host before specifying that this meat can “be cooked in 1001 ways.” “We can make recipes as long as we want. Today, we're going to make ostrich tournedos with morels.”
Other recipes proposed by Maïté during the show: ostrich steak with Sauternes then an ostrich carpaccio with basil. “If you want to do the same, ask your butcher if he can start finding ostrich meat since it is raised in France,” concludes Micheline.
