First you smell the sausage, sweet and spicy, wafting down the festival’s aisle at 30 miles per hour. Then, a new scent hits your nose, crispy and chewy, doused with sugar and shiny with oil ... must be fried dough. Lamb kabobs are on the grill, too, rich and slightly gamey. And of course, there are lemonade, pasta, pizza and cannolis.

You could eat your way through the biannual San Gennaro Feast; in fact, you should eat your way through it (isn’t that what an Italian feast is all about?). Just remember: Past the burgers, the slushes, the heaps of french fries and mozzarella sticks, there are rides. Some go high. Others spin. Most are better on an empty stomach. So pass on those barely charred sausages with onions and peppers for now, and skip the fried ice cream—at least, until after you take a turn on the tilt-a-whirl. Or as those who feast first call it, the tilt-a-whirl-a-puke.