Marthe Distel

[1] Marthe Distel started the culinary magazine La Cuisinière Cordon Bleu.

To prompt readership, Distel offered subscribers cooking lessons with professional chefs.

The classes led to the development of a more formal school, now known as Le Cordon Bleu.

[2] On her death in 1934, at age 62, Distel left the school to an orphanage, which struggled to manage it.

[3] The school closed during World War II, and was later bought by another French woman, Élisabeth Brassart.

Marthe Distel and Henri-Paul Pellaprat with their students in front of the L'école du Cordon Bleu in 1896