Unfortunately sat in the middle of dad's food (5)
I believe the answer is:
pasta
'food' is the definition.
(pasta is a kind of food)
'unfortunately sat in the middle of dad's' is the wordplay.
'unfortunately' is an anagram indicator.
'in the middle of' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'dad' becomes 'pa' ('pa' can be a synonym of 'dad').
'sat' anagrammed gives 'ast'.
'ast' placed inside 'pa' is 'PASTA'.
(Other definitions for pasta that I've seen before include "Spaghetti, orzo etc" , "Linguine, e.g." , "dish high in carbohydrates" , "Macaroni, for example" , "Tagliatelle, for example" .)