Animal eats an extremely fine meal (9)
I believe the answer is:
beanfeast
'meal' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'animal eats an extremely fine' is the wordplay.
'animal' becomes 'beast' (synonyms).
'eats' indicates putting letters inside.
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only the extremes of the word are used).
'fine' with its centre removed is 'fe'.
'an'+'fe'='anfe'
'beast' enclosing 'anfe' is 'BEANFEAST'.
(Other definitions for beanfeast that I've seen before include "Party with lots of food and drink" , "free meal" , "Celebratory party" .)