Artist with platters for root vegetables (8)
I believe the answer is:
radishes
'root vegetables' is the definition.
(radish is a kind of root vegetable)
'artist with platters' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'platters' becomes 'dishes' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'ra'+'dishes'='RADISHES'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for radishes that I've seen before include "Salad vegetables" , "Pungent roots for salads" , "Pungent fleshy edible roots" , "Fleshy roots for salads" , "Content of salad bowl" .)