Product Description

The legendary cooker celebrates its 80th birthday with a book that tells the story of its unique place in the hearts, hearths and homes of the British public.

For the first time Tim James tells the colourful story of the Aga, through the memories of those who knew it best, the friends and family of its Swedish Nobel prize-winning inventor, Aga owners, including Jamie Oliver and Jilly Cooper and those who cast its legend in iron and those who helped develop it from basic solid-fuel range to modern liestyle icon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #577971 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Jilly Cooper
‘At last the Aga has its own saga. Tim James has produced a fascinating account of this great institution - the heart of the English kitchen’

Mary Berry
‘Tim James has meticulously researched the history of the Aga and this wonderfully revealing book makes compulsive reading.’

Jamie Oliver
‘The Aga – the cooker that’s stood the test of time.’

Customer Reviews

Where's the Beef?
When this book first came to my attention, I placed an order and eagerly anticipated its arrival.

For several years in the early 70's I lived in Britain in an old farmhouse where I had a 1950's, four-oven, solid fuel Aga. When I first moved in, I was horrified to find a kitchen range that needed to be stoked, riddled, and ashes emptied - it was hard for me to believe that such primitive appliances still existed. After all, I'd grown up in the 50's in a house in California with every mod-con, and don't think I even knew anyone without a dishwasher and waste disposer. Now, here I was with a range that had to be fed and tended - how uncivilized! Anyway, to make a long story short, over time, I got to know the idiosyncrasies and rhythm of the Aga, finding that just like so many others, my Aga had soul, and I grew to love the thing - despite its faults. Even now, having been back in California for years, I still harbour fond memories of my Aga, and still think about having another. I find myself being an Aga-spotter in films and on TV, and I eagerly devour anything I find written about Agas. When this book came up, I had to have it.

Alas, except for a few historical photographs, there's little here that would qualify this book as the story of the Aga range. A more accurate title would perhaps be; "The MARKETING of a Kitchen Classic". The book doesn't contain a shred of information regarding the development of the range, nor does it contain a single diagram to illustrate how the cooker works. Only passing commentary alludes to the revolutionary differences between a heat storage cooker and kitchen ranges generally in use at the time Aga made its debut. Unless readers are of a certain age, they won't have a clue as to what it took to run a kitchen in the days before mains gas and electricity or water heaters were widely available.

Instead, the book presents a running commentary on advertising campaigns throughout the years, lots of badly cropped images of print ads, numerous photos with no captions, and quite a few horrible-sounding recipes from vintage adverts. Perhaps most surprising to me - the book goes into great detail on the Solventil, Dalen's invention that revolutionized lighthouse technology, while revealing absolutely nothing about the experiments and theories leading to the development of the Aga, or any details of the Aga's design.

The book contains numerous anecdotes and quotes from people who have owned Agas, various people who were involved in marketing or manufacturing Aga, and even some from celebrity food writers and TV chefs. Unfortunately, few of the quotes seem to have been included to illuminate a point or to illustrate any particular cooking method, but of course, as in any marketing piece, all heap praises on the Aga.

Unfortunately, the book makes no effort to separate fact from Aga myth, makes no attempt at a critical assessment of Aga performance or economy, never explains how Aga came to be a British company, and glosses over the financial upheavals faced by the various companies that have owned Aga over the past seven decades. The entire book is simply regurgitated marketing fluff.

The book is also laid out in a very confusing manner. Nearly every page contains one or more sidebars that may or may not relate to the main text on the page. To make matters worse, the sidebars often continue to the next page, or in some cases, skip a page - then continue. Needless to say, this makes it difficult to navigate the text, and in some places, nearly impossible to comprehend. The author constantly inserts anecdotes and long quotations in the midst of the main text -- further complicating the page layout. It's not unusual to find three or four different typefaces - in as many ink colours - on a single page. The editor of this mish-mash must have gone cross-eyed!

If you're looking for a book that explains the development of the original Aga, lays out the histories of the various companies that have owned Aga, describes the theories and experiments behind the design of an Aga, or if you just want to know more than what you can get from the same old marketing hype that Aga is still disseminating, this book isn't going to do it. On the other hand, if vintage print ads are of interest, you'll enjoy browsing this volume, despite the fact that many of the ads have been cropped in such a way that much of the ad text is cut off.

A classic
Aga cookers are such a strong part of many country childhoods, mine included, that I felt compelled to learn more. Very pleased that I chose this book for that purpose. Tim James brings the whole story alive in a most entertaining fashion. The photographs and text work so well together that its been a pleasure to read this super book.

Good stuff indeed.