Ruralite Cafe: Published 02/14/02

By Lisa Majors-Duff - News Editor

Does N.C. need a state fruit? Absolutely!

It wasn't long ago that I learned, thanks to Frosty, how incredibly delicious a scuppernong is. He'd just returned from one of his hunting trips in Georgia with a grocery bag full of the golf ball-sized green grapes he'd taken right off the vine.

I remember the lesson well. You don't just toss the thing in your mouth and bite down like you would a seedless grape from Food Lion, he said. A scuppernong is a little more work than that, but it's well worth it.

As usual, he was right. There's a technique to avoiding the skin and seeds of the fruit. Once that's mastered, the sweet juice, as luscious as true love, can be sufficiently savored.

My knowledge of scuppernongs, which I considered ample after this summer's experience, was expanded just yesterday when I received a message from the N.C. Muscadine Grape Growers Association in Rose Hill. The information they sent, which was titled "In Defense of Our State Fruit," explained that the scuppernong, "America's most famous native grape, was discovered growing wild in North Carolina by the famous Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano when he first made landfall on the North American continent in 1524."

Sir Walter Raleigh's name soon cropped up in the history lesson, as usual through a legend, this one about "the keg of scuppernong wine he made and sent to Queen Elizabeth for her drinking pleasure and to encourage her to settle the New World. So it was that the North Carolina scuppernong wine industry was born in 1587."

David Fussell, president of the Muscadine Grape Growers, bolstered his favorite grape further by touting "the scuppernong, once regarded as America's best champagne grade and still capable of making a dessert wine without parallel, has not only the longest but most facinating history of all the native grapes grown in the United States."

Finally, he got to the point of his message.

"Taste our delicious scuppernong grapes and savor our fruity scuppernong wines," he wrote. "Ask for scuppernong grapes and wines at your favorite store."

In bold letters, the story ended with "The state fruit of North Carolina is the scuppernong."

That statement, of course, got me thinking, and not just about whether I had any wine on hand for Valentine's Day. I'd never heard of North Carolina having a state fruit before. A state bird (cardinal), dog (plott hound) and flower (dogwood), yes. But a state fruit? What other state symbols was I ignorant of, I wondered?

With the Internet just a mouse move away, I started clicking. It turned out to be harder to find a list of North Carolina's state symbols than I though it would (or should) be. After finding our state's home page, I moved to the kids' pages and found the list, complete with the N.C. Legislature's Session Law that proclaimed each of the state's 21 symbols.

North Carolina's state beverage is milk, state rock is granite, state shell is the Scotch bonnet, state stone is the emerald and state vegetable is the sweet potato. North Carolina also has a state tree, the pine; a state mammal, the gray squirrel; a state reptile, the Eastern box turtle; and state insect, the honey bee.

In addition, North Carolina's state motto is "esse quam videri" (To be rather than to seem); its state song is "The Old North State"; and its two state nicknames are Old North State and Tar Heel State.

Guess what - the list does not include a state fruit, scuppernong or otherwise. I did find a mention of the gargantuan grape in the third stanza of the state toast, (I kid you not, we have a state toast):

"Here's to the land of the cotton bloom white,

Where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night,

Where the soft southern moss and jessamine mate,

'Neath the murmuring pines of the Old North State!"

Is the scuppernong among the officials state symbols of North Carolina? Apparently not, if the state web page is correct. But it should be, and everyone should back Mr. Fussells's efforts to declare it so all the way to Raleigh. Here's to the scuppernong!

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