Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Ham Biscuits Reign Supreme At NC State Fair

A plate of ham biscuits
Robyn Lee, Flikr

The North Carolina State Fair is coming to a close, which means time is running out to sample a smorgasbord of foods: turkey legs and fried Oreos. Ostrich burgers and pork BBQ egg rolls. Or perhaps your palate runs to the more traditional. If that's the case, then perhaps you should head over to the Cary United Methodist Church booth.

Well, it's actually more of a restaurant than a booth. And it's been running at the fair since 1916, making it the longest continuous food server there.

It's a joint operation between two Cary churches, White Plains and First United. It raises about $50,000 a year that the church uses to give back.

"This booth has been here for many many years. And we do this as a service to the community. All of the proceeds that we make are given to missions, both locally and internationally," said Helen Papageorgiou, one of the volunteers serving up ham biscuits for the church.

At 8:30 in the morning on a Wednesday, Cary United Methodist was doing a brisk business, something which restaurant manager Brian Webber attributes to repeat customers.

"It helps to have been in business since 1916," he said. "A lot of the people that come here...every year they come to our booth, and nowhere else."

He's talking about people like Jane and Bob Basnight, who stopped off for a simple breakfast before a long day at the fair.

"This is always our first stop at the fair," Jane said. "Because you have wonderful food. I love the ham biscuits in particular," Jane said.

But Bob comes for more personal reasons.

“I come here because a friend of mine works here, and if I didn’t show up first thing in the morning, he’d probably rough me up,” Bob said.

Newcomer to the fair, Reno Palombit heard about the ham biscuits and sought them out first thing. Though he says he won't stop there.

"I will be coming back though, and fried turkey legs is probably towards the top of the list," he said.

Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.
Related Stories
More Stories