I’m an Aga convert

I never thought it would be possible to feel such emotion about a lump of hot metal but I am in love and like all new passions it’s threatening to become all-consuming. I find reasons to drop it into conversation, I seek out others and join groups on social media that share the same predilection just for the joy of swapping photos and snippets of information.

The object of my adoration is the half-a-tonne of enamelled cast iron that squats at one end of the kitchen in my new house. Nestled firmly into a brick hearth, I call my Aga my green goddess and oh yes, she’s definitely a ‘she’. How do I know? For a start, she’s a consummate multi-tasker. Washing is dried and ironed perfectly with crisp fresh-smelling results comparable to a five-star hotel laundry. She generously warms both people and pets and I’ve read that farmers will often pop a sickly newborn lamb into the warming oven to revive it before sending it off to rejoin the flock.

Best of all she consistently produces unbelievably tasty and perfectly cooked food from any one of her four capacious ovens (or wombs as I like to think of them). Apple crumbles are meltingly soft in the middle and satisfyingly dense and crunchy on top. Bread and cakes emerge perfectly light and springy; slow-cooked meats and casseroles are simply to die for. The constant heat source seems to bring out the absolute best in simple ingredients and my reputation as a cook has somewhat undeservedly been elevated by several notches.

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Hamish McRae

The crash is not as bad as it seems

I’m writing this, sitting on a low chair pulled up snugly to her side while the relentless rain lashes against the window. My entire being is bathed in the gentle, wafting heat that emanates from her very core, comforting and steadfast. Because she simply sits there; still, calm, genial and always warm, I find my mood tends to segue with hers. How is it possible for a simple cooker to evoke feelings of such magnitude?

Admirers of the Aga will tell you it’s so much more than just a cooker. Interestingly, the Aga was invented in a kitchen and not in a development lab, which probably explains its practicality. The Swedish Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Dr Gustaf Dalen, blinded and housebound after an accident in 1922, was astonished at how much effort his wife and housekeeper had to expend to maintain a dirty and dangerous range cooker and boiler.

So, bored of convalescence, Dalen invented the world’s first heat storage cooker – the Aga – and one hundred years on, the design remains pretty much the same with just a few small ergonomic adjustments. Each Aga is still made individually by hand at a factory in Shropshire with parts such as the oven doors cast out of mountains of recycled scrap metal. Loyalty to the brand is such that it’s not uncommon for people moving house to transport their model with them.

Mine came with the house and I must confess I had doubts about just how useful this giant oil-guzzling lump might be. But firing her up for the first time felt like an adventure. Switches were flicked, dials turned, YouTube videos consulted. We held our breath and waited, entranced as the oil trickled into the pipes and the heat indicator gradually began to rise. My cats and dog took about two minutes to work out where the best spot in the house was – sprawled out on the rug at its base.

My tendency to impatience is tempered because the Aga is always on so there’s no waiting for an oven to heat up. The only thing you have to watch out for is forgetting what’s in there. Because of the way the Aga is vented, there’s no burning smell to warn you. A friend, equally enamoured with hers, once discovered a lone, stone-like baked potato that she’d popped into hers about five days previously. Like all converts to a cause, I realise I’m in danger of becoming an Aga bore. But my love for the green goddess is rather like that forgotten potato, oddly amusing and rock solid.