"Help yourselves to food, and welcome! Once you've dined we'll ask who you are."Book 4, page 126, line 68, The Odyssey
Hospitality seems to be a very significant issue that arises whenever a stranger is welcomed into one's household. Most evidently, food is the preliminary way to welcome a visitor since this is shown when Telemachus reaches the palaces of Menelaus and Nestor. Homer repeats a phrase again and again to show that the need for food is no longer necessary; "and when they'd put aside desire for food and drink," on pages 82, 109, 122, and 126.
This level of welcome is unheard of in our society but in their time, it seems as though it was expected from a host. Even in Ithica where the suitors are showing an abundant lacking of dike, they show that they expect hospitality by helping themselves to the crops and meat of the land.
This quote does an excellent job at displaying how key hospitality is to their society.
