Sonker Cobbler

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joshua Goosey from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Joshua, welcome.

Hey, how you doing?

Thank you, doing great.

Well, I pastored a congregation in North Carolina. I live in Dallas now, but when I came out of seminary, I pastored a church in rural North Carolina in the Yadkin Valley, which is kind of the northwest corner of the state, just north of Winston-Salem.

And at one of the first meals that I attended, someone asked me if I would like some sonker. And I thought, what in the world is that? And I said, sure. And so they gave me some, and they said, would you like some ice cream with that? And, of course, I took ice cream with it, and it turned out to be peach cobbler, which is what I had called it all of my life. And so I was curious, where does that word come from? Is it peculiar to the region?

Right, right. You weren’t in Surrey County by any chance.

That was my question.

I was in Surrey County.

Oh, yeah. Imagine that.

Sonker is a lovely dish. It’s basically cobbler, although you get some people who split hairs and argue that there’s some difference of a half a cup of sugar or something. More fruit. Or more fruit that makes it not cobbler. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s cobbler.

Can I eat it? Is it yummy?

Okay.

Case closed.

Case closed.

There’s a great description of sonker from the Mount Airy News. Mount Airy, which, you know, from up there in the county. From 1986, they describe a sonker as a pot pie, generally a cobbler, made of fruit, generally blackberries, black raspberries, or huckleberries, and unshaped dough and sweetened with either sorghum, cane, molasses, or sugar. And then you make a dip of cream, sugar, molasses, and put a few drops of vanilla extract in there. And then you pour that in a pitcher over the serving. You pour that mixture of the cream and the sugar or molasses and the vanilla on top of it.

Yum.

That’s a sonker.

Yum.

That’s good times.

Right? And then do you sonk out afterward? Why? That’s exactly what you do because it’s usually on a Sunday afternoon. Right, right, right. Dinner on the grounds, right? You have the chicken, you have the rolls, you have the stuffing, you have the green beans. That salad with the little marshmallows. Oh my.

But your question about the etymology of this, I did an entry for this for my official dictionary of unofficial English, which is now out of date. And it should be updated because I found this word since I published that book in 2006, as far back as 1909 in, of all places, the New York Times.

But they are quoting and making fun of the newspapers in North Carolina.

Oh, no.

In a joshing kind of interregional way, you know, where you make fun of the people somewhere else.

Those snooty provincials in New York.

I know what you’re talking about.

They don’t know from cobbler.

So this word is specific to North Carolina. I don’t even know if it’s ever crossed into South Carolina. Probably we’ll get calls and folks will tell us that that’s so.

But what’s interesting is I believe it’s connected to a Scots or a British English word. There’s two of them, but my favorite is Scots sonker, S-O-N-K-E-R, S-O-N-K-E-R, to simmer or to boil slightly. Because as I understand it, when you make this dish, that’s what you do with the fruit, right?

Yeah.

You simmer it, and then you can pour this cream mixture or whatever, the dough mixture on top afterward, and then the dough cooks while the fruit is still cooking. I mean, it depends on how you make it. Again, this is like arguing about barbecue. How do you make a good cobbler?

Oh, and that’s a big argument in North Carolina.

I know.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know.

Don’t let’s start.

Yeah.

Well, Joshua, you got Grant started here, obviously. We’re going to go to lunch. We’ll see you in a couple hours.

It sounds good to me.

Take care.

Thanks for calling.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, you know how we love language, and you know how we love language about food. If you’ve got some of both or either, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your questions and email to words@waywordradio.org.