Ready to eat offal, except for starters (4)
I believe the answer is:
ripe
'ready to eat' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'offal except for starters' is the wordplay.
'offal' becomes 'rip' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'for starters' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'except' is 'e'.
'rip'+'e'='RIPE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ripe that I've seen before include "Ready (to be eaten or used)" , "Mature, ready to eat" , "Mature for eating like fruit" , "Ready to pick" , "Mature, ready for harvesting" .)