Truffles: Scents and Sensibilities is an event that brings together a chef, an academic and a writer to unearth the mysteries of the truffle, dig up the dirt on common myths that surround them, and sniff out the olfactory allure of this subterranean fungus fruit.

Le Cordon Bleu is proud to support this event being held at Hotel Hotel in Canberra on Sunday July 31, 2016.

Cookery-school poster-boy Rodney Dunn from The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania, whose book The Truffle Cookbook is being released in June by Penguin is the special guest. Joining him on stage are food writer Barbara Sweeney, from Food & Words and Talking Cookbook, and Le Cordon Bleu Academic Director Dr. Roger Haden.

If our speakers don't present three very good reasons to book your ticket right now, the truffle-inspired lunch, cooked by the executive chef Sean McConnell of Monster Kitchen and Bar at the event venue Hotel Hotel, will.

Food & Words organises food events with a literary bent. This is their first event in Canberra and they are proud to be one of the many truffle events listed in The Truffle Festival program.

Date: Sunday July 31, 2016

Time: 11am - 3pm

Venue: Hotel Hotel, New Acton Nishi, 25 Edinburgh Avenue, Canberra

Ticketing: $255 includes talks, lunch with wine, refreshments and a signed copy of Rodney Dunn's The Truffle Cookbook (Penguin), valued at $59.99.

Booking: http://foodandwords.com.au/

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Rodney Dunn

Chef, owner of The Agrarian Kitchen, Tasmania, and author of The Truffle Cookbook

Rodney Dunn worked under Tetsuya Wakuda at Sydney restaurant Tetsuya's before moving into food media, working as a food researcher for the Better Homes and Gardens television program and the food editor of Australian Gourmet Traveller. In order to indulge his passion for growing fruit and vegetables, raising pigs, milking goats and keeping honey bees, Rodney, with his wife Séverine Demanet, opened the farm-based cooking school The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania's Derwent Valley in 2008. Rodney has recently followed up his first cookbook, The Agrarian Kitchen (Penguin) with The Truffle Cookbook (Penguin), a beautiful exploration of the wondrous truffle and your go-to truffle bible.

Website: theagrariankitchen.com Instagram: @thetrufflecookbook

Dr Roger Haden

Academic Director, Le Cordon Bleu and baker

Roger is Academic Director with the iconic international culinary arts educator Le Cordon Bleu, where he develops higher education programs including the Bachelor of Business in Food Entrepreneurship and the online Master of Gastronomic Tourism in which he also teaches Aesthetics of Food and Wine. He taught gastronomy and directed The Research Centre for The History of Food and Drink at The University of Adelaide for five years, where he also wrote Food Culture in the Pacific Islands and hosted several international conferences. He continues to research and write on sensory taste, the subject of his PhD thesis. Roger also writes occasional food-related pieces for The Adelaide Review and is chair of judges for the bakery competition at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show. A professional chef until the mid-90s, his interest in foraging for fungi is longstanding.

Website: cordonbleu.edu Instagram: @lecordonbleuaustralia

Barbara Sweeney

Cook, collector of cookbooks, director of Food & Words and food writer

Barbara Sweeney writes about Australian regional food producers and produce for a variety of publications, including Country Style, and has had the privilege of visiting and interviewing farmers who've embarked on the great Australian truffle-growing enterprise. She combines her on-the-ground experiences with a love of cookbooks to tell stories about food – as the Talking Cookbook at Carriageworks Farmers' Market in Sydney and at the food writers' festival she started in 2012, Food & Words. Barbara is Chief Judge of the Royal Agriculture Society NSW Regional Fine Food Show and a judge at The National Honey Show.

Website: foodandwords.com.au Instagram: @foodandwords