Blogger and food critic Mercotte will be in the spotlight on M6 for the finale of the eleventh season of Best Pastry Chef, hosted by Marie Portolano. But, do you know where his nickname comes from? In an interview with Paris Match, the juror and friend of Cyril Lignac broke the silence.

“It goes back to the very beginning of my marriage. Our surname is Mercorelli. All of my husband’s friends simply called him ‘Merco’, and since we were racing cars and I was a co-driver, Mercotte’s nickname imposed itself quite naturally. It’s quite simply the feminine of Merco. And, in the end, I adore, more than my first name, Jacqueline, which is not terrible. Mercotte, it suits me very well”, had– she explained in 2015.

Jacqueline Mercorelli, her real name, was born in 1942 in Aix-les-Bains in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. After following a hypokhâgne in letters, she entered the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Grenoble where she obtained a degree in English. Along with her professional life, she got married and gave birth to four children. But it was only much later, after the departure of her last, that she devoted herself to cooking. “When I got married, I didn’t even know how to cook an egg – never give up hope – but I was brought up to taste good things. I’m not a professional, just a passionate autodidact, I’m learning every day from my friends, chefs or pastry chefs, famous or not… As I am a perfectionist, when I became interested in cooking, I did it thoroughly!”, she wrote on her culinary blog Mercotte.fr .

A cooking blog that she created “a little at random” in 2005. “I was very quickly seduced by the atmosphere, the interactivity and the conviviality of the gourmet web. I try to share festive recipes, to demystify them, to make them accessible by explaining and simplifying them. I like this educational aspect and my goal is to help my readers progress by giving them the keys to push them upwards”, can we read on his site.

Thanks to her newfound notoriety, she published numerous books, including Solution Macarons, Solution Organization and even Solution desserts pas à pas in 2012. That same year, she entered the M6 ​​channel alongside Cyril Lignac on the program Le Meilleur Pastry cook. A “beautiful human and gourmet experience”, she explains on her site. Very quickly, this shocking duo made an impression on viewers so much so that today, the show already has 11 seasons.