Maïté, pioneer of gastronomy on television, died at the age of 86

For more than fifteen years, from 1983 to 1999, she accompanied millions of French people at lunchtime. Maïté Ordonnez, known to the general public only by her first name, died last night at the age of 86. She passed away in her Landes that she loved so much, in Rion-sur-Landes.

His show, “La Cuisine des Mousquetaires”, was the first to focus on gastronomy. Accompanied by her faithful assistant Micheline, Maïté has, over all these years, offered tempting recipes every lunchtime, always sprinkled with good humor. Her Landes accent and her caloric choices have made her a television icon, whose archives are regularly replayed. The most famous: the one where she tries to knock out a live eel four times, to then cook it “as a sailor”. On YouTube, the extract has been viewed nearly 2 million times.

Announcer for SNCF

However, nothing predestined Maïté to become an icon of the small screen. She began her career on the rails as an announcer for the SNCF. Until the age of 45, she alerted railway workers before a train arrived or played the bugle in stations to warn passengers. It was in 1983 that his destiny changed. While she is in the kitchen for the Rion-des-Landes rugby team, director Patrice Bellot, who came for a report, spots her gastronomic knowledge… and especially her strong personality.

This is how it establishes itself in the daily lives of the French, to offer a new recipe every day, often inspired by the specialties of the South-West. It is also in his village that the show is filmed. In Rion-des-Landes, she also opened a restaurant, “Chez Maïté”, which attracted many of her fans. After “Cuisine des Mousquetaires”, she launched the show “A Table” which ended in 1999. Then a second restaurant, still in Rion-des-Landes, before starting to withdraw from business in the 2000s, especially after the death of his son in 2008 from cancer. A painful ordeal.

The recipe… for success

It was his granddaughter Camille, candidate for the show Top Chef, on M6, in 2018, who gave his news. “She is doing well, enjoying her retirement and her family. She no longer wants to answer interviews or do television, it's no longer her thing.” the young woman revealed. Suffering in recent years from a neudegenerative disease, she lived in a nursing home, where she died.

Maïté Ordonnez leaves a rich legacy, a gastronomy of the small screen which has since made many children, the recipe still attracting as many audiences, more than 40 years after the launch of “Cuisine des Mousquetaires”.