For years, Auntie Poppie has been making sure that mense travelling along the busy N1 highway passing her hometown in Laingsburg get to experience her famous roosterbrood.
Now, after almost half a decade of kneading, cutting, and braaing in the Karoo, the auntie has decided to bring her delicious broodjies to the Kaap.
Rosaline ‘Poppie’ van As, 66, started selling her famous bread from the age of 15.
“I didn’t like it at first. I felt shy but I very quickly fell in love with the art of braaing bread, because I could also pray for many people who made a quick pit stop at my stalltjie,” she says.
Poppie believes that alles has to be done by hand and from scratch.
“My daughter also didn’t like it at first, she used to say ‘mammie, my hande brand’, but now she also loves making bread as much as I do.”
Smiling from under her famous Voortrekker keppie, Auntie Poppie tells the Daily Voice that she used to knead five 10kg bags of flour every day as her customer base grew.
She previously worked as a street sweeper and hiked between Laingsburg and De Doorns to do farm work.
Her amazing journey started 10 years ago when she saved money to buy kitchen appliances to start her own bakery.
The mom of seven had lived in Laingsburg for 13 years, and she recently moved to Macassar – where she sells her roosterbrood from – to stay with her daughter, Naomi ‘Amy’ Etson, 27.
Since Tuesday, the two have been kneading and flipping bread while customers queue.
“On the first day we made over 150 roosterbrood, people came back and asked for more.”
Amy says when she first told people that she is Auntie Poppie’s daughter they didn’t believe her.
“Now they can see it with their own eyes, and now they want to eat roosterbrood the whole day.”
Auntie Poppie says the secret of her smaaklike broodjies is simple: “I talk to God while making the bread, always, because He is the one who made a way and we believe when you include God in everything you do, all things good will follow.”
tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za