Quiet pioneer cooked Italian food (8)
I believe the answer is:
peperoni
'italian food' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'quiet pioneer cooked' is the wordplay.
'quiet' becomes 'p' (music symbol for 'piano', ie soft or quiet).
'cooked' indicates an anagram (letters cooked into a new form).
'pioneer' is an anagram of 'eperoni'.
'p'+'eperoni'='PEPERONI'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for peperoni that I've seen before include "source of heat consumed by Italians?" , "Seasoned sausage" .)