Sonkers?

"Sonkers, Grunts, Slumps and Crumbles."

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — The sonker has become my Moby Dick.

I came here to Surry County, where the cooking has Appalachian roots and the Blue Ridge Mountains are a short drive away, in search of the sonker. The dessert is baked nowhere else in the nation. But as I tried to get to the bottom of what makes a sonker a sonker, I realized that, as with so many country recipes, definitive answers are as elusive as that white whale.

A big, deep, soupy mess of warm fruit or soft sweet potato, the sonker was made to feed everyone who happened to be working at the farm on any given summer day. Like the many other players in the loose-knit team of dishes based on cooked fruit and bread, it began as a way to stretch fruit that was perhaps past its glory or make use of economical fillings like wild blackberries.

A big pan of sonker was easy to haul to the church supper or the event in the South known as the “covered dish.” It is less fussy than a traditional round pie, and easier to serve to a crowd.

At this point, the astute reader is probably thinking this sounds like a cobbler with a funny name. But what is a cobbler, really? Is it the freewheeling cousin of the crisp? The Southern answer to the thrifty New England brown Betty? A pan dowdy with integrity? A pie for lazy people?

Click the link to read the rest. Myself, I'd never heard of a sonker before now, so this qualifies as my "Learn Something New Every Day" for today.

Or, As W.C. Fields Described It...

..."An Ethiope in the fuel supply."

"The trend is especially noticeable in the South."

Well, imagine that.

Was It One Of Them Assault Tree Leeyums?

"Man assaulted with tree limb, robbed."

Down here in NC we often turn "limb" into a two-syllable word pronounced lee-yum.

OK, They Admit It: It's Just a Sideshow

Duck Dynasty, that is. And Honey Boo-Boo, and those folks that catch catfish with their bare hands. Paula Deen, too. All just part of the sideshow, like the Strong Man and the Snake Woman and Spock and the Dog-Faced Boy:



I found the admission here, in a discussion of the "offensive" remarks made by Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty:

"Channels like A&E program 'regular' people mostly to make curiosities out of them," said Jeffrey McCall, a media studies professor at DePauw University. "The programmers want to manage every aspect of their 'reality' commodities, but that isn't really possible.

"If A&E wants the Robertsons to make money for the channel by being authentic, then at some point A&E has to accept that reality stars will be real human beings," McCall added. "If A&E didn't like the Robertsons as they are, then why did they give them a weekly platform?"

So there you are. Just part of the sideshow.

Southern Manners On Decline, New York Times Says

Actually the headline reads "Southern Manners On Decline, Some Say," but I fixed it for them.

They start their story off in a metropolitan Atlanta bar, and a dispute between a bartender, two African-American men, and two European-American women. None is specifically identified as being from the South, yet we're told that somehow this matters to the story, as if the simple fact of presence on southern soil imparts southern gentility.

The incursion into the south of transplanted Yankees is mentioned, along with an unwillingness to assimiliate:

Dana Mason, who teaches second grade in Birmingham, says manners have been at the lowest level she has seen in her 36 years in the classroom. Parents who move South tell her they don’t want their children to learn to say “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am.” Too demeaning, they say.

They forecast good manners for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, which will be here in Charlotte in September:

The country will have a chance to see Southern civility on display next fall, when Charlotte, N.C., hosts the Democratic National Convention.

Life in Charlotte is not as pleasant as it once was. Like many American cities, it has its share of road rage and rudeness. And although crime rates have dropped, in May the city called out its Civil Emergency Unit and arrested 70 people who rioted two hours after the end of a Nascar event.

But in the best of Southern tradition, the city will try to lead with its manners come September.

“It’ll be all sweet tea and hush puppies,” says Michaele Ballard, a writer and lifelong Southerner.

We'll see. I plan to be out of town on vacation that week so I don't have to deal with it, since I'm a hotel worker.

I'll give the last word to Florence King, who wrote of Southerners in her book With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look At Misanthropy:

South Carolina novelist Blanche McCrary Boyd writes: "Southerners are polite as cattle, except when they're not. When they're not, they might shoot you or chase you around the yard with a hatchet."

Time To Let That Tax Expire, I Think

Alabama still collects $400,000 annually in property taxes for the care of indigent Confederate Veterans and a Confederate Memorial Park.

There haven't been any Confederate veterans for a long time now, of course. And the park can probably get along without the state's largesse.

How Mississippi Handled Westboro Baptist Church

Story.

Say what you will about Mississippi - - and people usually do - - but in this case they got it right. Way to go, Mississippi!

Fried...Pie

Now I'll be the first to admit that although I'm a Southerner born and bred, there's a lot of traditional Southern cuisine I don't eat, nor have ever tasted. One such treat is Fried Pie.

Note: I haven't tried this recipe, so I don't know how it tastes or will turn out. I just offer it for your consideration.



I'll see if I can find one in a local convenience store, since I'm not a skilled baker. If you try this recipe, let me know how it turns out.

Larry Correia, In His "About Me" Page On His Blog...

...had this to say about living in the South and Southerners:

I did fall in love with the South though. I had one assignment where I spent four months living out of a car and driving from small town to small town across Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, so I saw a lot of country. The South is a wonderful place, and I decided that southerners get a bad rap. People ask me why MHI is set in the South, and that’s why. Southerners get screwed in fiction. They’re portrayed as hicks, racists, and illiterates. In real life they’re proud, heroic, smart, hard working, good people. So I made MHI a Southerncentric organization.

I find that kind of neat. Thank you, Larry.