When you’re 40 feet in the air above the North Carolina State Fair, with your feet dangling over unsuspecting humans, food trucks, and whirling rides below, it’s not a great time to suddenly remember that you’re afraid of heights.

Especially not when you have a spoon in one hand and a cup of Lebanese-style ice cream in the other — creamy, gooey-stretchy, and topped with pistachios and extra-stiff cotton candy. As my stomach gave a warning lurch, I closed my eyes, clung to the thin metal bar that stood between me and potential disaster below, and reluctantly put my spoon back in the cup. I’d have to wait for the State Fair Flyer to deliver me back to terra firma before I risked another bite.

Visitors to the State Fair can start their day with a country ham biscuit from the Pittsboro Kiwanis Club booth, a fixture at the fair for more than 60 years. photograph by Dhanraj Emanuel

A fairgrounds regular might have known better. But that’s why I was there — I’m the furthest thing from being an NC State Fair veteran. In more than 30 years covering food events all over the state, I’ve judged countless contests — barbecue to biscuits to municipal drinking water. I’ve picked grapes at the Biltmore Estate winery and apples on hilltops all over western North Carolina. I’ve coaxed soft-shell crabs out of their shells on the coast and watched milk turn into cheese pretty much everywhere there are pastures.

But eat my way through the State Fair? Not once. It wasn’t my territory. I spent my work decades at The Charlotte Observer, nearly 170 miles from the State Fairgrounds. My compatriot Andrea Weigl, over at The News & Observer in Raleigh, got the yearly assignment to revel in funnel cakes and deep-fried monstrosities.

It’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve found myself semiretired with the freedom to spend an October day any way I like. I can finally grab the reins, catch a train, and head east in search of ham biscuits, blue ribbons, and all the sugar-coated fun a girl can fit into an afternoon.

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Foods at state fairs seem like they should be frozen in time, all cotton candy, candy apples, and corn dogs. And those things are still there. My favorite part of the fair is what I call “The Museum of Dead Food” — the cases and cases of pies, cookies, cakes, and candies wearing blue, white, and red ribbons. I saw pies with crusts that sport entire Bible verses, and cakes wrapped in winter scenes so snowy they’d never actually exist in a temperate North Carolina December. After they’re judged, they stay on display for the entire 11 days of the fair and then presumably go in the bin, too stale to be eaten. A pity, but the time people put toward constructing baked goods into artworks no one gets to eat makes me pause with respect and give a silent salute.

Still, a bigger surprise was waiting when I stepped into the state fair world: While I wasn’t looking, fair food went international.

Traditional fair fare includes cotton candy and caramel apples. photograph by Justin Kase Conder

Oh, there are still butter-slathered ears of roasted corn and peach cobbler wrapped in a pizza cone. I braved a 38-minute wait in one line for four ribs and a basket of fries from the Lawrence & Perry barbecue truck from Warren County. The ribs were $23, but they were tender, smoky, and moist — I’d have been proud to have made them on my Weber grill at home.

Walking along the midway, though, I spotted a world I didn’t expect: Brazilian bowls, and something called Safari Eatz that served Kenyan barbecue. Magdalena’s Chimney Cakes, a Hungarian treat with pastry wrapped around a stick, grilled in front of a fire, and then filled with whipped cream or ice cream, reminded me of a hollow version of New York’s beloved cronut.

For international cuisine, try Golden K Dog’s Korean corn dogs. photograph by JONATHAN FREDIN

At one stand, I could have chosen between a Cuban sandwich and an empanada. At another, there were cheesy Korean corn dogs. There was the Lebanese stand, Neomonde, where I could’ve picked lamb nachos or kale shawarma.

Instead, I went with Betty’s Bouza stretchy Lebanese ice cream, topped with white cotton candy that was so stiff, it looked it had been clipped from one of the founding fathers’ wigs. I was so overwhelmed, I took my Lebanese creation, with its varied textures and creamy tanginess, and climbed into a chairlift for a ride over the fairgrounds while I contemplated the wonder of it all. Even though I had to contemplate with my eyes squeezed shut while my Middle Eastern ice cream melted in its cup, I still took heart at the sheer creative variety of feasts below. Even better: Most of these businesses have a local presence in our state capital. Good for you, Raleigh.

No visit to the fair is complete without a freshly fried funnel cake. photograph by Justin Kase Conder

Today’s fair food captures something I love about America: the way we bring all the tastes and traditions of an entire planet together in one place and make them our own. Who needs a funnel cake when you can get a Jamaican jerk pork belly bao and a plate of kimchi nachos, and chase it all with an acai and dragonfruit bowl?

When the State Fair Flyer brought me back to earth, with my cup of Lebanese-style ice cream in hand, I was ready to watch some 4-H kids lead their homegrown sheep around a show ring. Maybe next time, they’ll bring llamas.