IN THE SHADOW of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains lies Surry County, where, if you’re lucky, you’ll cross paths with a fruit sonker. Not quite a pie, not quite a cobbler, and not quite a betty, crisp, or pandowdy (see “Is It a Slump? A Grunt? A Buckle? Depends Who You Ask.”), the sonker is a sweet, juicy, comforting, fruit-filled North Carolina dessert rarely found farther afield. So beloved is the stuff in Surry County that the annual Sonker Festival in Mount Airy draws thousands of celebrants (see “The American Table”).
Supremely juicy, with a cakey, sweet crust on top, sonkers are traditionally made deep-dish style to feed crowds and use up surplus summertime fruit on its way out. This is simple country cooking, and my research uncovered more family…
