Has the Aga had its day?

A whole chicken, not so much roasted as burnt to a crisp. Charred potatoes. Carrots so blackened they were welded to the pan. And don’t even get me started on the Yorkshire puddings, which resembled lumps of coal, still smoking amid the debris. Only once have I failed (catastrophically I might add, and in front of my entire extended family) to cook an edible roast dinner. And I blame the Aga.

Long a middle-class status symbol, Agas – in varying shades of duck-egg blue and volcanic red – can be found in country piles, cosy cottages and even the odd city kitchen. Devotees rhapsodise about the cast-iron cookers, which cost upwards of £10,000, stay on 24/7 gobbling up energy and require specialist cookbooks to conquer their idiosyncratic ways.

There is, they claim, a certain ceremony to cooking with an Aga: the low rumble as it heats up, the strange clanking sounds from within (often in the middle of the night), the warm gusts of air that flood the room when you open one of its many cavernous hollows.

Safe to say, I’m not a fan. For bakers such as myself, Agas are archaic, cumbersome and downright baffling to use. No heat controls, no dials, no see-through doors to give any insight at all into the sorcery happening inside… it’s no wonder I end up burning everything I attempt to cook in my mother-in-law's Aga.

There seems to be a secret code – ‘top right: extra hot on Sundays’, ‘bottom left: colder in the mornings’ – that changes weekly, to which only true Aga-ites are privy or capable of understanding. Baking is a science, and Agas are about the most unscientific culinary appliance I’ve ever come across. Why oh why would anyone want to cook in the style of a haphazard guessing game, dicing with your dinner every evening?

As it turns out, I’m not alone in my opposition. Just as the Aga – invented by a Nobel prize-winning Swedish scientist – celebrates its centenary, it seems it’s falling out of favour. Prompted, experts say, by spiralling household energy bills and a move towards more eco-friendly cooking, there’s been a rush to have Agas ripped from kitchens up and down the country.

One oven-remover in Blackpool has taken 35 out since the start of the year, as well as fielding more than 100 calls from owners trying to sell theirs. Some, he says, can’t afford the £500 extraction fee; others are so emotionally attached to the ovens that they’ve cried during the process. Another expert relays tales of homeowners moving into new properties and immediately getting the Aga removed without ever switching it on. Kent-based engineer Glenn Bing says he’s been taking them out at a rate of one a week, as well as converting oil and gas Agas to electric at the same rate.

So has this very traditional appliance finally had its day? And what’s behind its demise? Energy bills are, of course, a major driver in the Aga’s fall from grace. According to Aga’s own website, even a modern electric model – the Aga R7 – costs up to £49.48 a week to run (that’s taking into account the two hotplates, used for 30 minutes each a day). If you keep yours on 365 days a year, the bill comes to more than £2,500. Wind the clock back to older models (such as the Aga R5, now discontinued but still proudly in place in countless kitchens), and this spirals to £4,774 a year.

And when you compare this with other appliances, the difference seems astronomical. An electric oven costs an estimated £316 a year to run, a gas oven £120 – and a microwave just £30. With yet more bill hikes on the horizon, it’s no wonder Aga owners are reconsidering their love affairs with such a costly cooker.

Another factor is the weather. It was a long, hot summer – the driest in 111 years – and for most of July and August Britons wanted to douse themselves in cold water from the kids’ paddling pool, not sweat buckets over a sweltering stove. The summer may be over, but the mild weather has lingered – and it probably won’t be the last record-breaking summer we see. So do we really want a glorified radiator churning out heat in the middle of our kitchens?

Our growing love of global cuisine is also contributing to the Aga’s decline. The ovens are ideal when it comes to cooking stews, chillis and slow-roasted hunks of meat (as long as you don’t make the mistake I did and put it in the ‘extra hot’ bit). But when it comes to anything that requires a little more finesse – stir fries, steak, an aromatic curry, rice noodles, dim sum – then the Aga is not your friend. Its cooking style, much like its appearance, is clunky and old-fashioned: not a major selling point for adventurous cooks who like experimenting with new ingredients, dishes or techniques.

No wonder, then, that the Aga is being usurped by more modern contenders: primarily the air fryer, which does everything a conventional cooker can for a fraction of the cost. Forget that £4,700 annual Aga bill; invest in an air fryer and you could be paying just £52.74 a year.

Amid the turning of the tide, fans of the Aga have been quick to come to its defence. They point out that Agas can be used to heat huge kitchens, keep mugs of tea warm, dry clothes, iron linen, comfort cold children and pets. And never mind their idiosyncrasies – Agas, they say wistfully, simply have a mind of their own.

But quite frankly, I’m not a mind reader. I’m a busy mum, with very little time and even less patience, who just wants to make dinner without the pomp and circumstance of a cooking appliance I don’t understand or trust to do a decent job. Good riddance to the ancient Aga, I say – just don’t tell my mother-in-law.