Whatʼs cooking crossword clue?

What’s Cooking Crossword Clue: A Scrumptious Solution

Are you a crossword puzzle enthusiast stuck on a juicy clue? Look no further! In this article, we’ll dive into the world of culinary delights to solve the tantalizing riddle: What’s cooking?

Clue Breakdown

Crosswords often rely on puns, wordplay, and clever twists to pose challenging questions. The initial breakdown of the clue tells us that What’s cooking? is probably a phrase or a noun. Let’s analyze:

• What’s: a contraction of "what is" or "whatever," indicating a question seeking information.
• Cooking: a verb typically associated with food preparation in the kitchen.

A First Glance at Solution Options

Before diving deep, let’s take a glance at some possible answer options:

At first glance, all of these options seem to be related to food. However, upon closer examination, we can eliminate those that don’t quite fit the bill:

• Cuisine is an art of cooking, which might be a good answer, but it’s more abstract than we’re expecting.
• Recipe is a set of instructions, which is related but not the primary focus.

A Closer Look: Wordplay and Deception

Now, it’s time to dig deeper. The clue What’s cooking? might seem straightforward, but it relies on wordplay and deceptive tactics. Consider the word cooking:

• Cook implies food preparation, making cooking appear like a noun.
• Cooking, in a broader sense, could be a metaphor for brewing or concocting. Think about it: what’s brewing? could be a similar crosswords clue!

Breakthrough: The Answer Crumbles

With this double meaning in mind, revisit the options:

Dinner, a noun, seems an obvious fit. It might not be the most popular dish, but it meets the criteria. Recipe, while related, would imply a specific set of instructions, which doesn’t match the clue’s general tone.

The Scrumptious Solution Revealed

The answer we’re looking for is bolded: DINER. Yes, DINER, a noun, is essentially what’s cooking! While DINER doesn’t directly imply mealtime, it’s linked to the concept of where people gather to enjoy DINNER.

Why is DINER the correct answer?

• Dinner is often served or cooked in a diner, a casual dining establishment.
• As the phrase What’s cooking? is most commonly associated with a rhetorical question about food preparation (usually in a kitchen, not a diner), our brains naturally lean towards literal food preparation. Diner, as a reference to a place where this cooking happens, is more convincing.

Conclusion and Recap

In this engaging crosswords puzzle, our challenge was to decipher a phrase that seems straightforward on the surface but relies heavily on wordplay and wordplay-related tactics. Break down the clue, observe potential answer options, examine the wordplay, and – voilà! – the solution DINER emerges victorious.