A time for cooking, swallowing fish bones (9)

I believe the answer is:

metacarpi

'bones' is the definition.
(plural of 'metacarpus')

'a time for cooking swallowing fish' is the wordplay.
'for cooking' indicates anagramming the letters.
'swallowing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fish' becomes 'carp' (carp is a kind of fish).
'a'+'time'='atime'
'atime' is an anagram of 'metai'.
'metai' placed around 'carp' is 'METACARPI'.

(Another definition for metacarpi that I've seen is " Bones between the wrist and fingers".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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