In extremes of penury, she always has something to eat (5)
I believe the answer is:
peggy
'something to eat' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'in extremes of penury she always' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'extremes of' suggests removing the centre (only the letters at the extremes of the word).
'she always' becomes 'egg' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'penury' with its centre taken out is 'py'.
'py' placed around 'egg' is 'PEGGY'.
'has' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for peggy that I've seen before include "one associated with Sue" , "- - Lee, popular singer" , "Dolly < bird" .)