Cairo man cooked food (8)
I believe the answer is:
macaroni
'food' is the definition.
(macaroni is a kind of food)
'cairo man cooked' is the wordplay.
'cooked' indicates anagramming the letters (letters cooked into a new form).
'cairo'+'man'='cairoman'
'cairoman' with letters rearranged gives 'MACARONI'.
(Other definitions for macaroni that I've seen before include "finishes off burlesque verse" , "Short narrow tubes of pasta" , "Tubular pasta" , "Thin tubes of pasta" , "sort of pasta" .)