We're walking through the hazel bushes and oak trees, following Tawdiffu the Lagotto as she chases a scent on the breeze, tail wagging. There's a distant, insistent mooing echoing off the small hills behind us, and then, Tawdiffu freezes nose pointed down to the base of a hazelnut bush.
"Truffle?" asks Barbara Hill, Tawdiffu's owner. Then the operation begins. David Learmonth, the executive chef from the kitchens at Parliament House, is handed a spoon. He's down on his knees, delicately moving the dusty dirt from the hidden gem, before a dark lump emerges from the ground.
