sonker n. a type of berry pie or cobbler. Editorial Note: This appears to be specific to the area near Mount Airy, N.C. Etymological Note: Perh. fr. Sc./Brit. Eng. songle, singill, single, ‘a handful of grain or gleanings,’ or from Sc. sonker ‘to simmer, to boil slightly.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Mark in Bismarck, North Dakota, spent years as a sailor, and wonders about the term sea painter, meaning “a rope attached to a lifeboat.” Why painter? The word may derive from Middle French pendeur meaning “a kind of rope that...
A resident of Michigan’s scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies...
I was raised in Surry County and my grandmother make sonka from fresh fruit. It was the best dessert I ever had. It consisted of melted butter, milk, fruit and flour. She measured the ingredients by the knowledge in her head, just as her mother and grandmother had. The fruit of course was fresh seasonl fruit. Sometimes in the winter some canned fruit, but never as good as summer.This was in the 1960’s.