Well you should be. Because this is not fake news; it is the real thing, fresh out of B.C., where in mid-December the Below the Nut Farm on Vancouver Island reported that, after a decade of nurturing, their spores had at last yielded fruit. To be precise, just over two kilos of luscious black Tuber melanosporum—aka Périgord blacks.

Note, from a cooking point of view this is your go-to stuff. Whites are the most precious, in part because they cannot be cultivated. But regard- less, what’s ideal for shaving over warm pasta is no good for slipping under the skin of a chicken to make poularde demi-deuil, or to chop into a brunoise and scatter into a consommé. When it comes to cooking, black winter truffles rule.

The nearest they were previously cultivated was Oregon. Which was handy, but didn’t much impact Canadian cuisine. Now suddenly we have our own. We can cook Canadian with a full luxury deck: foie gras, caviar and truffles. How much better can a 150th birthday present get?