Family: The stove became my best friend: The relationship between Pip Dundas-Jones and his stepfather was a real Aga saga

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Dundas-Jones, Pip
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 19.06.2010
• ISSN: 0261-3077

My love of food began long ago. As far as I can remember, in fact. And it started with an Aga and rice pudding. The Aga was a vast cream and black behemoth, glowering on the stone flags of the farm kitchen. It had doors, drawers, dials and apertures enough to fascinate the curiosity of a six-year-old boy with an undiluted imagination. From the moment I saw it, I was beguiled and drawn into every part of its system. My first memory of rice pudding is etched with force. It symbolises an act of compassion in the midst of despair. For the Aga also presented a dangerous nemesis. When my mother and I moved to a farm to live with Graham, my stepfather, I was five. In the first days of this strange new parent, I was confused and detached. For security, I found the bewitching warmth of this huge cast-iron beast in the kitchen. At any opportunity, I hid beside its hot water boiler. In the evenings, my stepfather would wander through the greenhouses or past the apple trees, checking for the perfect ripeness of his latest progeny. He would never touch the fruit, for as any gardener will know, they carry a "bloom", a sort of musty blush, that must be unsullied for the perfect fruit. Soon he began to notice an early predator had been at his prizes. Little finger marks on the bloom betrayed a thief among the nettings and glass. Just before he was ready to pluck a succulent nectarine from the tree, it vanished.