Kitchen Appliances: The Aga Saga
A little note about Agas, those bizarre high-end Finnish-designed, British-made ranges. For those who aren’t familiar with them, an Aga is a large enameled cast iron range with various hot spots on top and multiple compartments of different sizes that serve as ovens and broilers. They look pretty cool as they come in shiny enamel colors like forest green and red with heavy polished metal trim. Now here’s the bad news
for those who crave one of these things: they are always on and always hot. That’s right, they’re burning gas twenty-four hours a day, winter, spring, summer and fall. This is a technology leftover from the days of English great houses with kitchens staffed with servants who were on call to provide meals and snacks 24/7.
For most of us living in the 21st century, the idea of keeping a stove going full blast all the time is weird to say the least. Richard did a kitchen for a client who had to have her Aga. Running into her hubby a few months later he asked how they liked the kitchen. The reply was classic: The kitchen is great but that Aga is always on, its blazing hot in the summer and my wife rarely cooks! That’s our Aga Saga…
On a positive note, if you have a large family and cook everyday, an Aga may be right for you!
By the way, they’re quite expensive- $8-10k and up.