Death of Maïté at 86, rustic cuisine served on a platter – Libération

Maïté was first of all a voice, a South-Western accent like you rarely hear on television. Sequences as cult as gory too, that we would no longer see today, like the one where she knocks out eels with a pestle, bleeds a duck before making duck breast or eats an ortolan in her hand with a lot of noise suction. Maïté was a star of the kitchen and the small screen, a lover of traditional cuisine, the kind that requires a whole lump of butter for each dish. Real name Marie-Thérèse Ordonez, Maïté died on the night of Friday to Saturday December 21 at the age of 86, according to information from Actu.fr, confirmed by France 3 Aquitaine and by RTL.

She became famous thanks to her show the kitchen of the musketeers, where she highlighted rustic and picturesque cuisine alongside Micheline Banzet (who passed away in 2020). The show was first broadcast for eight years on the regional antenna of FR3 Aquitaine, from 1983 to 1991, before having the honors of the national signal until 1997 (then A table ! until 1999). Why F3 Aquitaine? Because Maïté came from the Landes, of course. More precisely from Rion-les-Landes, 2,700 inhabitants and a name that sounds like candied pork fat or an invitation to laugh over a good meal.

Former announcer at SNCF

Before retiring for good a few years ago, Maïté opened two restaurants there: the Relais des Landes in 1998 then more simply Chez Maïté, with success helping. But Maïté was not born in a pot: this daughter of resin workers (sharecroppers harvesting pine resin) who went to school in clogs, as the story goes Libé in 2020, was first an announcer at SNCF. For two decades, she had to warn rail workers of approaching trains with a trumpet. A somewhat boring job, which gave him time to practice “ballast cooking” on a small stove. Colleagues, including Pierrot, her husband, brought her food, she prepared a meal which delighted the railway workers every lunchtime.

Fame came later, in her mid-fifties, when a documentary filmmaker caught her cooking with her proverbial passion for the Rion rugby team. He suggested that she appear on TV, her colorful career was launched. Then began another life, which also made her become an actress with a first role in the comedy The Fabulous Destiny of Madame Petlet or participate in Celebrity Farmon TF1. Or even reuse one of his most famous outings – “It doesn’t say woodcock here!” – for the benefit of a laundry detergent brand. She will even have her own puppet Guignols. Nevertheless, despite the light of the spotlights on the Parisian plateaus, Maïté will remain faithful to her Landes village, where she always resided.

Would she have thought that one day she would have the honors of the President of the Republic? On the social network the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, wanted to greet this Saturday “an ambassador of our traditional cuisine, popular icon, source of inspiration for so many families who so well embodied the art of being French”. And that of knocking out eels.