First off, I need to acknowledge the amazing work done by Jeff Pavlik on the subject of 18th century New France. Do check out his tinder fungus article and his entire site at colonialbaker.net.
http://www.colonialbaker.net/tinderfungus.html
Tinder fungus, hoof fungus, cows hoof, bear crap, amondu are all fun names for Fomes fomentarius. A gray striated fungus that grows on trees. Charles Boninnin tells us from the 1750’s that “ Maple trees usually have large growths on them, which are cut and dried in the sun, making a sort of touchwood which the Canadians call tondre." So for the purposes of this blog post I’ll use any of these terms to refer to the fungus.
Pehr Kalm tells us in 1749 "Tree fungi are used very frequently instead of tinder. Those which are taken from the sugar maple are reckoned the best; those of the red maple are next in quality; and next to them, those of the sugar birch. For want of these they make use of those which grow on the aspen tree.”
In my area of northern New York I have only found it growing on the base of live birches or anywhere on dead ones. I usually find them in clumps growing outward or up in more or less a straight line. Generally there are more smaller ones than larger ones. Often they have mold or large holes from insects. I would encourage anyone foraging to try to learn more about the fungus and when where and why you should harvest it in the most responsible way.
In the past I’ve harvested tinder fungus but never did much with it. This year I’ve gathered the fresh ones and scraped the hard outer layer down to the “amondu” when cut as thin as you can in the largest pice you can you get a velvety felt like substance. It is a complex orange-ish color and especially at the ends it’s fibrous layered nature give it striations which play tricks in the sun light like a tigers eye stone. The inner area which is apparently not the part one needs to catch a spark is also fibrous but the fibers are bigger and fused together like a melted plastic hair brush. When gathered fresh and un molested by bugs it is quite wet especially in that inner layer.
There are a few 18th century references to its use among Canadianas and Indiginous people, none of these sources mention what they did to it once they gathered it from the forest other than letting it dry in the sun. There are a seemingly immeasurable videos on YouTube explains how to use it as a quick spark catching tinder.
The majority of these explain that the tinder must be soaked in some kind of chemical such as lye in the form of hardwood ashes mixed in water or ammonia in the form of urine (this choice I only heard about I have no record of someone reproducing this method which was reportedly used by the Vikings) or charring the material by burning it in a controlled manner to reduce its make up to carbon.
Since treating the tondre was never mentioned from any source I’ve seen on the subject i cut the mushrooms apart and left it to dry in the sun. I first simply cut away the outer layer and attempted to throw sparks onto it with flint and steel. There was no spark catch. So with the idea that I could gather this using only my boucheron knife and byscase axe and not treating the mushroom chemically I have been pounding, slicing, and flexing this amondu felt in an attempt for it to catch and hold a flint and steel spark but to no avail. Yet.
I have however gotten a smoldering coal in less than 1 minute when simply cut up and burned with a glass magnifying burning lens. This makes make lighting a pipe especially easy. The mushroom, when lit burns evenly and slow and smokes more than I was expecting. It holds a hot coal in the same way incense does and throws similar kind of smoke. The smoke is not acrid but a lot of it will come from the mushroom quickly.
I tried to put so many sparks to this felt when it was fresh and after it dried for a couple of weeks that I started using up too many gun flints before hunting season. This lead me to find some flint or chert like stones. That’s a story for a different post. I have found though that with just a small amount of char cloth and a small pice of tondre I can easily produced flames from a single flint and steel spark.
The down side of this method is that I still rely on char cloth being available to make a fire.
The down side of the burning lens is that one needs enough sunlight to focus a beam.
I hope to eventually be able to make a fire by only using flint, steel, and tondre but for now I think I’ve found my new favorite historically accurate fire starting material.
