Time magazine, which reported on that election, chose to quote her in the article title: “Finally, my Costas, we’ve made it.’’

Giorgos Karatzaferis, leader of the right-wing populist LAOS party, who was a New Democracy member of Parliament in the 1990s, said Sunday that Mrs. Mitsotakis was “a dynamic woman.’’

Mrs. Mitsotakis was devoted to her husband and fiercely protective of his reputation. She used to say she was unfit for party politics and marveled at her husband’s perseverance and cool demeanor.

“If you chopped [him] into little pieces, you could sell him as Valium tablets,’’ she once told an interviewer.

Mrs. Mitsotakis had a reputation as a formidable cook. Her husband’s political opponents credited her with using those skills to “turn around’’ two veteran Communist leaders who agreed to join the conservatives in a coalition government in 1989 with the sole purpose of taking socialist leader Andreas Papandreou to court on corruption charges.

This was urban legend, but Mrs. Mitsotakis used it to publish last year a cookbook titled “Recipes With a Bit of History.’’ The book was an instant hit.

Born on Nov. 29, 1930, to a wealthy Athenian family, Marika Giannoukou married Mitsotakis, 12 years her senior, in 1953.

She leaves her husband, four children, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.