It sits squat in my kitchen, like a repurposed battleship engine. A strong vision in British Racing Green.
It is indeed quintessentially British – think Mary Berry, think Midsomer Murders – and at the height of our first love it was a joy to cook.
But for now and for the foreseeable future, my love affair with my three-oven 13 amp electric Aga is over.
That's partly because in the sixteen years since I installed the beast – which made little change compared to £9,000 – it has broken three times. That kind of sticks when the central selling point for the Aga has long been its reliability.
However, the real problem at the moment is the unaffordable running costs, at least because all our energy bills have skyrocketed several years ago as if someone just pulled the switch on an inflatable life raft.
Blame Vladimir Putin. Liz Truss. The Greens, wider Marxist-Lentilism and Ed 'Jargon Monoxide' Miliband.
But when I last looked with dread, an Aga with three 13 amp ovens cost £70 to run – £70, my children, a week.
Accordingly, the beast has been gone since it had its last little hissy fit. It still feels a bit like a death in the family.
Mary Berry, the 'face' of Aga, in her kitchen with her trusty stove
If I had had a cat, it would undoubtedly have left itself at the mercy of social services.
But under current energy market conditions, running the world's largest stove is, for now, the prerogative of the significantly wealthy or mortgage-free.
Even as Aga celebrated its centenary in 2022, Britain resounded with the sound of desperate homeowners ripping them out. Calling someone to dismantle one will cost around £500 each.
One Blackpool 'uninstaller' was responsible for 35 ex-Agas in September that year.
The history of the stove is more involved than you might think. For something so archetypally English, it was actually invented in Sweden – by one Gustaf Dalén, recently blinded in a work accident and determined to free his wife from her hopelessly involved and smoky reach.
But it was in England that it took most joyful root.
Licensed production began in Shropshire in 1929, the Aga soon received a rave review in Good Housekeeping – and was quickly adopted by the Royal Family.
Queen Mary and her sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (who died in 1981 as Queen Victoria's last surviving grandchild) were enthusiastic early adopters; the Princess Royal today has a track with four ovens in pillar red. You simply can't buy that kind of publicity.
What Dalén had invented was a solid cast-iron thermostatic stove, thickly insulated on the inside and – in an era of cheap and plentiful coal – that operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and, by the standards of the time, on very economic terms. could work.
No external part is ever hot enough to burn you and the gentle ambient heat was a bonus for damp farms at a time when few enjoyed central heating.
The essential principle is that while you start many dishes on the hotplates (there are two, one for cooking and one for
simmer) you throw them in the ovens as quickly as possible and fold down the famous, round, shiny hob covers to save energy.
There are only two limitations. You can't make chips on a traditional Aga – at least classically, in a terrifying pan full of seething fat – and there's no top grill.
Otherwise, it's all about the ovens (you'll have between two and four) and the precise, skilled storage of various dishes in those ovens.
It's a gentle, radiant heat, you have to use your own judgment and the results are mouth-wateringly delicious.
What the Aga is not is a cooker for the kind of gourmet who demands precise, detailed recipes – the kind of saddo who once asked Nigel Slater whether the teaspoon of chopped parsley called for in one recipe should be stacked or round.
The 'face' of Aga in our time remains the eternal Mary Berry, who has a long relationship with the company and wrote the two official cookbooks.
More unlikely fans include Jamie Oliver. “I don't think there's anything you can't cook on an Aga,” the lovable mop top enthused in 2002.
“Smack the thing on top, brown some meat, throw a bunch of stuff in there, slam it into the simmering oven and come back eight hours later and it's bad.”
But the man who really made Aga great was the suave David Ogilvy, widely recognized as the godfather of modern advertising and who wrote The Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker in 1935.
His teachings were short and sharp. Approach a household through the back door. Don't talk to the mistress, but to the cook.
Laugh at every joke about the Aga Khan as if you've never heard such giddy humor.
“Get dressed slowly and shave well,” he advised. 'Don't wear a bowler hat…'
Ogilvy became the widely respected 'King of Madison Avenue' and some of his slogans are for the ages.
'At 100 kilometers per hour, the loudest sound in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock…'
The ease of use of the Aga, and especially the invaluable holding qualities of the simmering oven, were particularly appreciated in the 1920s and 1930s when it became increasingly difficult to recruit domestic servants.
One housewife even exclaimed that the simmering oven was as good as having a maid.
But for decades, conservatism was the hallmark of the brand. It wasn't until 1956 that you could buy an Aga in a glossy enamel color other than the classic cream; 1959 before they released an oil-fired version.
And it wasn't until 1996 that production of the solid fuel Aga ceased – largely, I'm told, because it had become so difficult to source the recommended fuel, anthracite.
In 2000, the company seemed to be losing confidence in itself, a trend that only accelerated after the Aga Rangemaster Group was snapped up by the sharp-eyed Americans at the Middleby Corporation in 2015.
The range of models and styles is now mind-boggling, and a lot of emphasis has been placed on allowing customers to turn the temperature up and down, or on and off.
You can now buy an Aga that you control via your smartphone. But production of oil and gas-fired – and all 'always-on' models – ceased in January 2022 and sadly the Coalbrookdale foundry closed in November 2017.
There is still a strong argument for the stove, at least once the energy market becomes less bullshit.
When you buy an Aga, it will be delivered to your home in parts and quickly assembled by an expert team.
All other series, from the Rayburn to the Esse, are supplied as one unit and must be collected and installed at your own expense.
Having once had to do it, I can assure you that hoisting a Rayburn from a van into your kitchen is a Homeric epic.
But you no longer need a kettle, dryer, toaster or sandwich maker. Depending on the layout of your home, you may be able to live without central heating for months.
There are generous warranty terms and the cooker should last the rest of your days: in 2009, as part of a company competition, a 1932 Aga was found still in use in Sussex.
And you will enjoy a certain way of life: a kitchen that everyone instinctively gravitates towards, a table with fragrant roasts and unctuous casseroles, and the cheerful honking of a whistling kettle.
I look forward to resuming it. For now, unfortunately, my Aga Khan does not.
