Food hashed up at the American centre (4)
I believe the answer is:
rice
'food' is the definition.
(rice is a food)
'hashed up at the american centre' is the wordplay.
'hashed up' becomes 'ce' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'centre' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle letters of 'american' are 'ri'.
'ce' after 'ri' is 'RICE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rice that I've seen before include "... his librettist - cereal" , "Seeds from the paddy field" , "Grain for food" , "Cultivated food grass" , "Staple cereal" .)