Word: aga
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...stove is British in that it is manufactured solely in Shropshire, in western England, by the Aga-Rayburn company (www.aga-rayburn.co.uk), now a part of the larger Aga Foodservice Group. However, the Aga was invented not in Britain but in Sweden in the 1920s...
...With two ovens and two huge hot plates protected by the hallmark round insulated covers, the Aga has outwardly remained unchanged from Dalén's original design. However, there is now a four-oven version, and an add-on module with two conventional ovens. The castings for the Aga, first imported into Britain in 1929, are supplied by the historic Coalbrookdale foundry in Shropshire, where in 1709 iron was first smelted with coke rather than charcoal, thus helping to usher in the industrial age. Hand-finished right through to its glossy enameled surface, the Aga does not come cheap...
...Flick through the pages of celebrity magazines like Hello! and OK!, and there'll often be an Aga somewhere behind all that lip gloss. Its cachet is gold-plated: royal country houses are equipped with Agas, Mel Gibson is a fan, and Tony Blair used to have an Aga before moving to No. 10 Downing Street. The stove has even given its name to a genre of contemporary fiction: "Aga sagas" are about modern families whose lives ebb and flow through Aga-centered kitchens...
...adroitly marketed Aga lifestyle comes complete with dedicated cookery books, special cast- iron kitchenware in some of the cooker's eight standard colors, expensive training courses given by chefs and cooks around the country, and even a quarterly magazine with proud owners' photographs of Agas in the bosom of their families. Despite this wholesome picture of Aga life, the stove is a daunting prospect for a first-time user. The doors have no conventional handles - they are lifted open and shut like gates. More worrying still, there are no temperature dials to adjust either the hotplates or ovens...
...Such difficulties failed to deter 7,000 new owners last year, 80% of them in Britain. Aga-Rayburn's managing director Geoff Harrop wants to see a push for the American market, where some 10,000 Agas already have homes and around 400 are sold every year. France and the Netherlands are also ripe for expansion. "The Group has declared a target of an annual 10,000 sales within two years," he says. The passion for minimalist kitchens is peaking in Britain, according to Homes & Gardens editor Matthew Line. It's good news for the Aga, but whatever the fashion...