History of Soetsuurdeeg

Evidence points to humans evolving out of Africa millions of years ago. The Khoisan and Pygmies, some of the original hunter-gatherers spread outward from central Africa, becoming the most populous group prior to the Bantu expansions around 1000BC. The Koikoi populations inhabited what is now South Africa around 00AD, and were pastoral herders. The Bantu and Koikoi began the use of the click consonants.

In the 1300’s, European colonization began with the Portuguese searching for a silk road route around the southern end of Africa. By the mid 1600’s, the Dutch East India Company had become an established entity, which grew to influence people’s daily lives almost like a government. There were more employed and enslaved persons on these ships than were living in Europe!

Many Dutch emigrated to the southern end of Africa and became known as the Boers or Afrikaaners. In the late 1600’s, the French Hugeonots also left France due to religious persecution, and settled among the Dutch colonists, as their protestant leanings were similar.

Many different peoples became known as Afrikaaners, with their language becoming the most prominent (blue color) over time. By the year 2000, they comprised over 60% of the South African white population. 

Potatoes are indigenous to Peru. But there is controversy over whether the Dutch  brought the first potatoes in the 1600’s or if it was the French Hugeonots. Either way, the Huguenots, being a smaller group, blended in, intermarried, and became part of the Afrikaaners. Once the British insurgencies controlled this area in late 1700’s, these Boers or Afrikaaners wanted to be independent, and moved into rural areas north of Cape Town, away from the British administrative ruling.

The Afrikaaners brought wheat and bread-making to this area, but may have shunned yeast from the British. Perhaps this explains how the Afrikaaner settlers came to invent Soetsuurdeeg bread. There is documented history of the Koi Koi using sheep's gut in a potato/wheat flour mixture to obtain a ferment that raises a dough. Using the resources they had, they fermented potatoes and whole wheat in a warm environment overnight without yeast.