Whilst the goal of this festival was to attract visitors to our beautiful heritage town during the winter months, and it certainly did that, it was also designed to provide the students of  BCS with an opportunity to work with internationally successful chefs and experience the pace of a commercial kitchen producing food with high end products – truffles, acorn fed Spanish ham, magnificent Braidwood beef and cultured dairy products like Pepe Saya truffle butter. 

The girls in the Ag School hen house provided over three hundred fresh country eggs to compliment this fine fare. Well done girls. 

Another significant goal of the day was to provide visitors and locals with information about the world of Fungi, in particular truffles. Emeritus Professor Jim Trappe and Todd Elliot, from USA, kindly hosted by the Marshall family, were joined by Dr Andrew Claridge of Australia, and provided entertaining and informative presentations on the symbiotic relationship between the host tree and the truffle, and their importance to our native animals. The BCS tiered learning space was an excellent venue for this.

it was fascinating to learn that there are some two thousand varieties of Australian native truffles, with two new ones being discovered in Monga Forest by Professor Trappe and Todd during their visit.  Whilst these native truffles are not palatable to humans they are much sort after by our Bilbies, Bettong and other small marsupials.

The Central School will host the event again next year and it is hoped that the festival will be the catalyst for firmly placing the Braidwood region on the map for its natural beauty and wide range of fine produce to compliment our Black Gold.