Nobody ever looked regal eating scrambled eggs, and the duchess knew it. On this sodden Wednesday, Camilla Parker-Bowles had come to a truffle farm on the eastern edge of Canberra to sample local delicacies. There was truffle-infused honey (“Very nice,” she said), truffled ice-cream freshly frozen using liquid nitrogen (“Very quick,” she said) — and a greasy pan of scrambled eggs finished with truffled butter.
Damian, the chef, ladled a rubbery chunk into a bowl and passed it to the Duchess of Cornwall. She paused for a second, surveying the wall of photographers before her. Resigned to her fate, she took a mouthful. The cameras erupted in unison, like a wave crashing to shore.
About 3,000 French and English oaks lined the farm on Mount Majura road. Last year it produced 140kg of truffles, owner Sherry McArdle-English said. The fungi fetch at least $2,500 per kilo. Journalists were asked to step in a container of light bleach before they entered the grounds.
Not so the duchess, nor her entourage, who stepped through the gate unbleached. (One imagines whatever they walk in all day actually encourages truffles to grow.)
On leads nearby were Snuffles the American cocker-spaniel and Samson the black lab. The plan was for the two truffle-hunters to give a royal demonstration. Snuffles, curled under a picnic table for shelter, seemed uninterested. “She’s here for the photos,” manager Jayson Mesman confessed. “Samson will be doing the handwork.”
But there was a problem: truffles, which can take three years to grow, are only “ripe” in mid-winter. As a workaround Jayson had trudged into the fields earlier that day, burying a particularly impressive specimen in camera-friendly location.
A great cheer went up as Samson bounded into the field and then settled in one pungent spot. Mesman unearthed the clump and presented it for smelling to the duchess, McArdle-English and Lucy Turnbull, the wife of the prime minister.
The conversation proceeded as you might imagine among three truffle enthusiasts, at least two of them worth a bajillion.
“It’s huge,” Turnbull said. “The ones we get are normally much smaller.”
Camilla appeared to enquire if it was the biggest to be found here.
“Oh no, the largest we’ve ever found is 500 grams,” McArdle-English said.
A royal spade — identical to the one Prince Charles had wielded in Adelaide the previous day — stuck out in the dirt nearby. One last regal act awaited the duchess: to plant tree number 3,001, a specially selected English oak, beside a plaque commemorating the occasion.
She turned the sod with gusto, and was ushered into a waiting limousine, entourage and travelling British press in tow.
“I believe her royal highness really enjoyed it,” McArdle-English said afterwards. Turnbull, characteristically cool, said she too had enjoyed the event thoroughly.
She betrayed no trace of republican allegiance. Perhaps this pricey fungi could be common ground for the ruling couples? “Malcolm is completely infatuated with truffles,” Turnbull said.
