Cryptic food and drink

morning glory said:
Vegetable is dished up as parrot spins backwards. (5,8)
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OK. This one has been sitting here since 12th December so here is the answer and explanation:
Roast Parsnips. Its an anagram of 'as parrot' with 'spins' spelt backwards. The anagram indicator is 'dished up'. So the first part of the answer is the letters from 'as parrot' changed around to make 'roast par' followed by 'snips' ('spins' backwards).
 
Cinisajoy said:
Never would have thought to anagram as parrots.
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Anagram clues are quite straightforward really. You have to forget everything you knew about grammar. Then the clue makes sense.

Lets take the clue: Vegetable is dished up as parrot spins backwards. (5,8)

  • Each clue will have a definition (that tells you what kind of thing the answer will be). In the case of the above clue, the definition part is Vegetable
  • Each clue will have an indicator (that tells you its an anagram). In the case of the above clue, that is dished up. There are loads of anagram indicators, but basically they all mean 'mixed up'.
  • So far then, we know that we are looking for a vegetable which is going to be an anagram of 'as parrot spins backwards'.
  • But we can see that is too many letters. We know the answer has only 13 letters. So... we deduce that 'backwards' must be giving us an instruction: 'spins backwards'
  • So we reverse the word 'spins' to get snips.
  • Then we assemble the other letters 'as parrot' to make 'roast par' which if we add 'snips' makes roast parsnips
 
morning glory said:
Anagram clues are quite straightforward really. You have to forget everything you knew about grammar. Then the clue makes sense.

Lets take the clue: Vegetable is dished up as parrot spins backwards. (5,8)

  • Each clue will have a definition (that tells you what kind of thing the answer will be). In the case of the above clue, the definition part is Vegetable
  • Each clue will have an indicator (that tells you its an anagram). In the case of the above clue, that is dished up. There are loads of anagram indicators, but basically they all mean 'mixed up'.
  • So far then, we know that we are looking for a vegetable which is going to be an anagram of 'as parrot spins backwards'.
  • But we can see that is too many letters. We know the answer has only 13 letters. So... we deduce that 'backwards' must be giving us an instruction: 'spins backwards'
  • So we reverse the word 'spins' to get snips.
  • Then we assemble the other letters 'as parrot' to make 'roast par' which if we add 'snips' makes roast parsnips
Click to expand...
I wouldn't have thought of dished up as anything remotely resembling mixed up.
 
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