Welcome to my food blog “Kitchen and letters”,
I started the idea of this blog thinking that it was going to a be a fun one, easy one, little did I knew that it was been very interesting actually. It all started from a question, If I could buy any stove, what would I buy? My answer was quick, AGA. Swedish design built in England for over 100 years. The first and only time that I have seen a Aga stove was in the perfect setting. A countryside home in England almost 20 years ago. While I did my backpacking trip around Europe, I met a English guy that was ridding his motorcycle through India and was on his way back, we met in Igumenitza, Greece. We promise to contact each other when we returned to England and we did, it took us a bit to be in touch but we managed. One day he invited me over to his home town. It turned out that he has a farm boy, just like me, and his mother loved cooking, as we entered his family home, where he grew up, there it was! This beautiful huge stove that had its specific place, I asked, what is that? I had never seen one, but it was love at first site, the whole scenery looked as it was taken out of an old English film. That whole trip it was, sort of a story that Jane Austen could of written. It was my first time out in the English country side, I was feeling farm sick. I was at Uni by then unable to travel to Mexico to visit the farm, so a short trip outside London to a farm was heaven; and heaven it was when I saw that stove, his mother took the time to explain to me how it worked and that, that stove was so heavy that it had never been moved, she got it from her mother or grandmother. They built the kitchens therefore the house around the stove! Can you imagine that. It was a dream( I know I’m a nerd). Years passed and I keep looking for info, it turns out that now you can buy one on this side on the world, actually you have been able to buy one for many years now. As I was doing my research yesterday, I found out what the price of one of those stoves are in the USA, how much would you pay for a cast iron very heavy stove that needs to be on all the time? you have 2 large burners, and 3 ovens that are set in different temperatures? It can run on diesel, electric or gas, there is also an option of duel fuel. That dream stove does not come out cheap, you can guy one for 24, 000 usd! Yes, you are reading it correctly! But it is worth it?
Does it make a difference when you are cooking?
I have bought around 4 stoves in my lifetime and planing to buy only couple more, I always knew that the stoves that I was buying where not the ONE. The have been practical stoves, that get the job done, the warm food in a timely maner an they are within my price range, but I have always know that when I get my house I has going to look for the ONE, and in my mind that was an AGA. Yesterday, I started to do my research, and I read more about it, and I will continue to read more.
It does make a difference to cook in a heat efficient cooker. Food is chemistry, the longer the food is cooking the less flavor and nutrients it will have, the more fuel you need to warm up the stove, therefore the food the more expensive a dish will be. To keep an AGA stove on all year, it takes around 40 litres of diesel a week to keep it on(according to their US website) however according to Martha Stuart, it takes little to nothing in time to prepare hot meals all day.
Im pretty sure that as cooking your food in cast iron pots and pans is not a myth, neither a cast iron cooker that has been in the market for 100 years!
But, you may wander why all this fuss for a stove, it was not until yeasteday when I was reading, that I, for the first time started to understand how this everyday appliance that we see in almost everyone in the world, is so important, and there I was researching once more. I’m not done, I think I have just touched little of the surface about stoves. If you think about it, food does taste different if is cooked in a wood oven, open air, in a camp site, in other words: the fuel that we use to cook our food does change the flavor of the food we have cooked and also the time we cook the food. Most of us maybe might not have the pallet to taste the difference, because we are not a costumed to it, but I’m sure if we start training out pallet that can change with time. I will like to try that experiment, as learning more about stoves and start the interesting search for the perfect( besides AGA) stove.
Like in everything, it all depends what you want the appliance that you are buying for. I wanted to start talking about stoves, thinking wrongly that it was a simple topic to talk about, how hard could it be to buy the perfect stove? Well, as it turns out its more complicated from what it seems.
To answer this, I think is best to first ask couple of questions: What is your price range? How much do you cook? Do you want it for home or business? Is design important? What size are you looking for? What are you going to be cooking? Do you want an imported product or buy local brand? Do you want something durable? After you have answered these questions, then, you ask more questions: Do you want an efficient fuel? How about dual fuel?
Next time you are out and about looking for a restaurant, try something different, do pay attention if you order pizza from a wood oven pizza restaurant and dare to ask what kind of wood they are using. Cooking our food is not that complicated, is just that we are not educated to ask questions that might have an effect in our life in something so crucial as how we cook our food. Flavor and nutritional value it should be on the top of our list when we are preparing food, and as it turns out a good cooker or stove is as important as the quality of the ingredientes that we buy.
I promise to keep my search and keep you posted. In the mean time here are some of the links that I have found so far. I hope you enjoy them, keep reading.
If you find something or have your opinion about this topic please do share, I will love to have feedback.
Thank you for reading
In good food,
Iliana Lanuza
Links:
#agastoves #stoves #kitchenstories #foodwriter #learningtowrite #foodbloger #foodblog #foodsociology #foodlife #cooking #healthycooking #castiron #experimentlife #interesting #
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