`Food writing's shameful secret is its intellectual poverty," wrote John Thorne, himself a distinguished member of the fraternity. This widely valid generalisation was notably challenged by Mireille Johnston, the French-American cook, author, scholar and television presenter, who died on October 5th aged 65. Her distinction lay not so much in her books as in the totality of her life.
She was born Mireille Busticaccia, the only child of a successful importer-exporter, in a house on the old Promenade des Anglais in Nice: "A tall, apricot-coloured house with green shutters overlooking the sea," she began her first cookery book. "We were constantly sent to the seashore, the garden or the hills to find ingredients for the kitchen."
This idyllic childhood was shattered by the second World War. The family home was blown up by the Germans, and Mireille Johnston's father became a key member of the Marseilles resistance. She was sent to an English boarding school. She returned to France after the war to study in Aix-en-Provence, and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study American-Indian civilisation at Oberlin College, Ohio.
A woman of extraordinary intelligence, modesty, beauty and charm, Mireille Johnston wore her Ph.D lightly. Thus, she was admirably suited for her tour de force, the 12-part BBC2 series, A Cook's Tour Of France.
Recorded in 1992 and 1993, it did not have to be formulated as light entertainment, and so her interviews were conducted in French and broadcast with English subtitles. This made it possible for Mireille Johnston to converse fluently on camera with some of the most distinguished names in contemporary French cuisine, including Paul Bocuse, Andre Daguin, Joel Robuchon and Lulu Peyraud.
Mireille Johnston was able to establish in a few words the distinctive cultural identity of each locale, with the help of music related directly to the scenes it accompanied. Recently rebroadcast on BBC Choice, the series is timeless. Mireille Johnston came to food by way of an academic career and political activism. Both activities were encouraged by her husband, Thomas Johnston, whom she met in 1958. They were married within a year, and pursued their academic qualifications at Yale, and then their careers, in parallel.
After gaining her doctorate in comparative literature, Mireille Johnston taught successively at Yale, Sarah Lawrence College, New York, and Columbia University. She also became a civil rights protester.
In the meantime, her husband was beginning his own career as a documentary film-maker. This took them both to New York, where his work brought him into contact with the Kennedy family. In 1964, he took charge of Robert Kennedy's senatorial office, and four years later became his presidential campaign manager. Mireille Johnston was thus introduced to many world leaders and to many of America's leading intellectuals, among them Norman Mailer, Jules Feiffer, Pierre Salinger and Random House publisher Jason Epstein.
The fact that Mireille Johnston was a polished hostess and an able cook did not go unnoticed, and it was Epstein who commissioned her first book, Cuisine Of The Sun: Classical Dishes From Nice And France (1976). This and her subsequent book, The Cuisine Of The Rose (1982), were both designed by Milton Glaser, another dinner companion. The Complete French Cookery Course (1992-1994) was based on her television series. Her books contain highly personal versions of classical French recipes, but her departures from tradition are conscientiously noted.
In 1972, Mireille Johnston translated into English the transcript of Marcel Ophuls's remarkable four-hour documentary on occupied France, The Sorrow And The Pity. She explained later her work was a tribute to her father, Jean, who had been disgusted at the number of known collaborators who, after the war, claimed to have remained loyal to France. Her translation was published in Britain in 1975.
Inheriting from her father this sense of social justice, Mireille Johnston remained a dedicated and active socialist. Once back in France, she joined the Socialist Party and demonstrated against Le Pen and the National Front. Mireille Johnston brought to her life's work all that she had received through her father's Italianate family, conditioned and enriched by her Nicean upbringing. The result was a cultural blend as complex, yet coherent, as the cuisine which she so ably practised and presented.
She is survived by her husband and her two daughters.
Mireille Johnston: born 1935; died, October 2000