What is on the menu?

Fruit, a vegetable, dairy, grains and the sweetest thing bees make. Every clue describes what the food is or what you do with it, never a brand or a recipe, so the puzzle stays solvable years from now. The answers run from three letters to six, a comfortable range where the crossings do a lot of the work for you.

From one EGG to four six-letter words

EGG is the only three-letter answer, the thing the hen lays that you can boil, fry or scramble. At the other end sit four six-letter words: CHEESE, BANANA, BUTTER and CARROT. CHEESE is the busiest answer in the grid, crossed by CARROT, EGG, SALAD and APPLE, so once the clue about cartoon mice clicks, four other answers get a free letter. HONEY, made by bees, connects only to BANANA, and RICE only to BUTTER, which makes those two the last ones many solvers finish.

A tip for crossword beginners

Read all the clues once before writing anything, and start with the one you are surest of. Each letter you place is a free hint for every answer that crosses it. If a crossing produces a letter that cannot start or continue your word, do not force it: one of the two answers is wrong, and it is usually the one you guessed.

Print the menu

One PDF for the puzzle, one for the answer key, both free and both a single sheet that prints clean in black and white. It suits a kitchen table or a classroom unit on food, and young readers who know their fruit and vegetables can finish it alone. More themes are on the printable crossword puzzles page, the same foods turn up in the food word search, and the easy crossword makes a good warm-up.

Same theme, different puzzle: Food word search