Welcome to Truffle Season

words by ben stephens 

When I think of truffles, a story I was told comes to mind, it goes a little something like this.

A friend used to work in some top kitchens across London in the late Naughties…

This dear friend remembers a French man that would visit once a week with a clothed bag with a drawstring… drawn tight.

Inside that bag were truffles, fresh from the French soils, smuggled into the UK via Dover fishermen, earlier that morning.

The head chef and the dainty French man would head to the office, yell about prices, football and butter, then a large sum of Pounds was handed over. We’re talking 1500-2000 pounds, in exchange, the French man would reach for a 1kg truffle from his bag.

That story makes me even more interested in the underbelly of the truffle trade that exists.

Here in the Oceanic arena that we find ourselves in, the first, humble truffle was grown in New Zealand in 1993. Skip forward 20+ years and now Australia and New Zealand are producing over 600kgs of the fungi and we can’t get enough.

To celebrate the industry, the Months of June, July and August the good people The Truffle Festival have just kicked off the Canberra leg!

The winter might be bloody chilly already, but the truffles and the magic they add to any dish will keep you warm this winter.

With cooking demos, degustation and luncheons planned for the next three months, you won’t be short of a truffle infused meal.

Check out the whole festival programme HERE

The most exciting part about Truffle season is hunting for them.

We here at QT Canberra love nothing more than getting out there in the forests and foraging for a little fungus.

So much so, we partnered with The Truffle Farm to offer you a decadent weekend of luxury accommodation and feasting with us and the opportunity to get out on the farm and hunt for some of those elusive delicate treats.

Welcome to Truffle season!