Did Odysseus Eat His Vegetables?

". . . rows of tables heaped with bread and roast meat, while a steward goes to dip up wine and brim your cups again." (The Odyssey, book IX)

There has been mention of cheese, curds & whey (this is what the Cyclopes likes to eat), grapes, of course, and acres of fruit trees.

But, not a single vegetable. While feasting in the halls of kings, listening to stories, the characters are served by a larder mistress who comes with a tray of roast meats.

But, where are the vegetables? I'm telling you, there is something off kilter here, some prejudice I do not understand. Why do fruits get a mention, but not a single leafy green anti-oxidant producing veg? There are bags of barley meal, jugs of wine, grapes. There is a picnic, when Nausikaa (Book VI) heads to the river to do laundry, but no mention of its contents. Coleslaw? caesar salad? tomatoes and olives? beets? (the color of beets is certainly a classic dark violet, a color often used in the story).

I myself think that vegetables are considered unheroic and therefore not appropriate to an epic. Too bad. If the National Association of Dieticians could quote Homer on vegetables in the diet, just think how persuasive they could be.