It was the chef Joël Robuchon who suggested his name to President Mitterrand when the latter was looking for “a woman from the countryside for his cuisine”.
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Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch, former personal chef of President François Mitterrand and first female chef at the Élysée, died Monday September 30 at the age of 81, we learned Tuesday from the town hall of Coteaux-Périgourdins ( Dordogne), where she resided, confirming information from the newspaper South West.
The life of this cordon-bleu attached to the Périgord region inspired the film by Christian Vincent Flavors of the palate (2012) with Catherine Frot in the title role. She also recounted her journey in Cooking notebooks, from Périgord to the Élysée (Bayard, 1997).
A young mother of four children, she began her career by organizing the very first introductory courses in foie gras on the family farm La Borderie, in Chavagnac, in 1973, before traveling around the world and serving two years at the Élysée (1988-1990). Despite “the climate of manipulation which reigned at the Élysée” – THE banana peels being numerous –she confided that she had “got along very well with the president“.
A truffle menu that she created for François Mitterrand and Mikhail Gorbachev has notably entered the Elysian taste memory. Despite her good understanding with the president, Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch left the Élysée following a misunderstanding with Danièle Mitterrand, before going to support a scientific expedition to Antarctica.