Fruit, Dough, and the sonker

If Surry County had an official food, it would be the sonker, a cross between a cobbler and a pie. This country recipe is a deep, warm-milked sugar concoction made in a large deep-dish square pan—perfect for serving large crowds as a covered dish.

Although depending on the part of the Surry County you live in and from family to family, a sonker is either made with sweet potatoes or fruit and is slightly more juicer than cobblers with about a batter-to-fruit ratio of 3-to-1.

In the early days, a sonker was made to take advantage of the farm's fresh fruit and to feed everyone who happened to be working at the farm on any given summer day.

In some sonker varieties, a "dip" is traditionally served with sonker, especially the sweet potato variety. Dip is a simple sauce of milk, sugar, and vanilla or cornstarch, cooked until thick that you pour over an individual serving of sonker.

So, whether you still think a sonker is just a cobbler, in Surry County, it's a sonker.

Click to visit the Surry Sonker Trail.