My taste buds just traveled the world. How about yours?

I experienced the most unusual lunch last week, a global smorgasbord of sorts.

The meal took place at the 57th Summer Fancy Food Show in Washington, D.C., where 2,400 companies from around the world showcased 180,000 specialty products, aisles and aisles of food arranged by state and country in a space the size of five football fields.

Buyers from around the world come to the show each summer to spot trends, find new ideas, and buy products for their stores and restaurants. I came shopping for story ideas - new flavors and foods and the people behind them.

And, of course, I came to sample.

Just after the doors opened at 10 a.m., I paused at a booth at the edge of the action, where my lunch began with a triangle of very young Gouda made by a Wisconsin couple.

But what next? A stroll down the Italy aisles? A foray into Spain? Virginia? China? Africa? West Virginia? The West Bank?

There was nothing to do but press into the morass. Soon I was sampling anchovies from Italy, tarallucci, limoncello, sun-dried tomatoes and olives of all sorts.

Onward to a few sips of Indian tonic water and a squirt of tart cherry concentrate.

I tasted chive-and-onion butter atop an impossibly thin cracker, espresso, mint truffles, gluten-free cheese pizza, a quinoa lettuce wrap studded with dried cherries, onion in balsamic vinegar, curry mustard, guanciale, truffle salt, truffle honey, and a crunchy little gingersnap washed down later with a splash of mojito mint-and-lime-infused green tea.

More cookies! A bite of whole wheat chocolate chunk, then sun-dried tomato butter, truffle mousse, a naked baked chicken nugget, tiny pink peppercorns in white chocolate, tinier mustard seeds in dark chocolate, Ouzo-flavored tomato sauce, dried cherries, Greek Chios Mastiha honey (flavored with sap from a tree that grows only on a certain Greek isle), frozen mango puree, key lime mustard and translucent slices of salty-savory prosciutto di Parma.

Oddly, I still felt fine.

A nibble of waffle, freeze-dried strawberries, a ready-made crepe, raspberry--jalapeno jam, 10-calorie raspberry jalapeno jam (thank goodness!), fig-and-merken chutney, sliced salami, nonalcoholic merlot, French champagne, malbec, a bit of dark chocolate bar flavored with Ceylon cinnamon and ancho and chipotle chilies, Skillet Bacon Spread, gazpacho, coconut-rum-filled chocolate,  African chakalaka relish, guacamole and corn chips, bacon steak, hog jowl, chimichurri, queso, vegan pate, aged gouda, biscotti, and a tiny spoon of truffle cream that stayed with me awhile.

At some point, I rested for a bit on a vacant chair somewhere between Austria and Mexico. Or was it Germany and Syria? I only know that I soon pressed on.

A speck of dark-chocolate peanut butter cup, half a gummy panda, a nib off a fennel cocktail straw, lemon-infused black tea, sparkling peach juice, sparkling cherry juice, sparkling apple juice, soy sauce, hearts of palm, a chew of dried fig and an apricot-almond granola bar, sopressa, a red olive, a black olive, a green olive, Hawaiian lehua-and-cinnamon honey portabella-and-Gruyere ravioli peach-infused black tea pancetta sea saltandcrackedpepperpeanutsandquesoandchicorychocolatemousseandgingervanillacognacandcremebruleebloodorangesodablackberryjamflavoredwith-PyreneeschilisChileanCaricajuiceandspringwaterand-duckandcognacpateandTun-isianFirechef'ssalt.

At the stroke of 5 o'clock, I found myself upstairs in the American Cheese Society section, where a man cut a chunk of fontina from a wheel the size of a truck tire. Could there really be this much cheese in the world?

And then it was over. Salespeople began covering displays with tablecloths, and I headed out onto the D.C. sidewalks, where there was no food, only trees and sunshine and a whole lot of bustle.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com