An Aga is a heavy iron cooker — a big stove — that sits in the kitchen and stays warm. The old ones look a bit like the farmhouse cookers people used a century ago: thick doors, hot plates on top, and heat that never really goes away. Today's Agas usually run on electricity, oil, or gas, and they cost a lot of money. In Britain especially, they are a class signal: middle-class people who live in the country, or who like the idea of country life and a large kitchen, often want one. You heat food slowly in them, and the kitchen stays cosy. People say an Aga as if it were a type of thing, but it started as a brand name. Though actually, the letters AGA come from a Swedish company, Aktiebolaget Gasaccumulator (the stock company Gas Accumulator) — not from the Turkish title ağa, which is a different word that just happens to look similar.