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Have you ever wondered what kind of culinary creations can be prepared on an AGA cooker or slow-combustion stove?
You can head to Fyshwick Home & Heating on Saturday June 2 to see Margaret Dargan demonstrating some of the possibilities.
Margaret, who hails from Tasmania, is known as a chef, baker and caterer.
She has been doing such demonstrations for years and one event called her the “queen of home hospitality” while another referred to her as a “home economist”.
To see Margaret’s demonstration, Tim Kane from Fyshwick Home & Heating says all you have to do is “Drop in any time from 10am to 3pm and taste some food, have a talk, and experience the superior quality from a cast iron stove like granny used to cook on.”
A PIECE OF HISTORY
The AGA cooker was patented in 1922 and invented by Nobel Prize–winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén.
He was the founder and chief engineer of the Swedish AGA company, and amazingly, he had been blinded back in 1912 by an acetylene explosion during a test to find the maximum pressure for the gas accumulators the company made.
He developed the AGA cooker at home with the assistance of his family.
The AGA cookers were first sold in 1929, and you can still buy this style of slow combustion stove brand new. Rayburn make them and AGA Australia are the importer.
Dalén’s original design was for a heat storage stove and cooker made from cast iron. They can also be used as the heat source for a hot water system or for central heating. On top of that, if you want it to, one of these slow-combustion stoves can allow you to limit the need for a tumble dryer, an electric kettle and a toaster throughout winter as well.
LASTS A LIFETIME
About ten years ago, a UK newspaper put out a call to its readers in an effort to find the UK’s oldest working AGA cooker still in domestic use.
Loads of people contacted them with examples installed in the ’50s and the ’40s, but the prize went to one that was confirmed as dating all the way back to 1932.
It had received some amateur repairs to the exterior, but it remained a fully-functioning unit that its elderly owner still relied upon all those decades later.
OTHER OPTIONS
While Rayburn continues to make the slow combustion stoves, AGA now make versions that use electricity, gas or both.
They also come in various sizes, down to the AGA 60 which is just 60cm wide.
JUNE SAVINGS
Tim says “we have special deals for the entire month for the AGA and Rayburn range of stoves.”
Visit homeheating.com.au