John Burn with a truffle I couldn’t afford.

On the way down to Wanaka for our annual skiing holiday (mostly at Treble Cone), we stopped at Ashburton to visit truffle growers John & Iris Burn. They were holding a “harvesting workshop” (with Crop & Food Research) for South Island growers, and I wasn’t going to miss that…

John & Iris were one of the original NZ truffle pioneers, planting their trees back in 1990, but they had to wait until 2004 for their first crop. As you can see from the smile on his face, John was enjoying himself – and he deserves all the pleasure just for being patient. He was offering truffles at “mates rates”, and I wanted one to take down to Wanaka. Something around 30g to 50g would have been perfect. The one he dug up for me weighed 220g, and I couldn’t afford it.

Press coverage of the day here, a successful sale here, and on TV One’s Close Up here (the video clip was available at time of writing).