Death of Maïté, the famous cook from the southwest and pioneer of cooking shows was 86 years old

GASTRONOMY – She was the face of French cuisine on television for decades, and her way of speaking left its mark on generations. The one who was seen by many as the grandmother concocting local recipes, Maïté, whose real name is Marie-Thérèse Ortonez, died on the night of Friday December 20 to Saturday December 21, at the age of 86. Information given first by News Landes before being confirmed by our colleagues at RTL.

On France 3, his show The Kitchen of the Musketeersbroadcast from 1983 to 1997, brought cooking to the small screen, well before this type of program became more common. She offered generous dishes and entertained viewers with her unparalleled banter. Spotted in the 1980s during filming on the rugby team of her town of Rion-des-Landes, for which she cooked at the time, Maïté had previously worked, for two decades, as an announcer for the SNCF.

After her success on screen, she opened her own restaurant in her native southwest, “Le Relais des Landes”. In the 2010s, she chose to move away from the kitchen and retire in her village of Rion-des-Landes, far from television.

In recent years, she has been very discreet, remembering above all the good memories of the French via the countless parodies and tributes to which she was the subject, from Les Inconnus to Jérôme Commandeur to name but a few.

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