There's a lot of it in Greek writing, though it's also clear that they were pretty self-aware in that style. Iliad is chock-full of exaggeration-by-convention, Thucydides stresses at key places basically going "no, guys, I'm not saying this for effect like other writers usually do, it happened like that" and counts on reader not being gullible in that regard, and Aristotle disses on authors overusing these modes as immature and lacking. IIRC dissing on Aristophanes', since that was his thing. Plutarch often juxtaposes contemporary hearsay with plausible causes/effects, emphasizing a couple of times how the style of other (sometimes lost) authors muddled the events.

It's kinda like how 'silver age' of Latin gets the rep of no substance and all-style, but that's because imperial absolute ruler changed the purpose of rhetorics from discourse to entertainment. They were aware what's being said when nothing is being told -- which Seneca corroborates in his writing while under banishment -- we're just left guessing what those nothings are about exactly. We typically read Greek tall-tales and think they were swallowing it whole, which I doubt they took too literally themselves.

"the sunchoke problem"

I don't know, sometimes the novelty of it is enough? Then again, I do admit to having rather plain palette, willing to favour texture to flavour.