Pictograph: a covered vessel of food viewed from the side. The top stroke is the lid (亼); below sits a footed bowl (豆) full of warm food, with steam rising. One of the most homely characters in the script — a single image of a hot meal under cover. Identical across 繁體 / 新字体 / 简体.

As a radical, 食 marks anything food-related. When it appears on the left of a compound it morphs slightly into 飠 (in traditional script) or 饣 (in simplified) — known as the "food-side radical". It appears in: 飯 / 饭 (rice / cooked rice), 飲 / 饮 (drink), 餅 (rice cake), 飼 / 饲 (to feed), 餐 (meal), 飽 / 饱 (full / sated). Spotting the food radical on the left is a near-guarantee the meaning involves eating, food preparation, or appetite.

Mandarin: shí, rising 2nd tone. As a noun root: 食物 (shíwù, food), 美食 (měishí, delicacy), 食堂 (shítáng, cafeteria), 主食 (zhǔshí, staple food). For the everyday verb "to eat", spoken Mandarin uses 吃 (chī) instead — this is one of the high-priority Mandarin/CJK divergences. 食 in modern Chinese feels formal/literary; 吃 is the colloquial verb.

Japanese: on-reading ショク (shoku) for compounds — 食事 (shokuji, meal), 食堂 (shokudō, dining hall), 朝食 (chōshoku, breakfast), 昼食 (chūshoku, lunch), 夕食 (yūshoku, dinner), 和食 (washoku, Japanese cuisine), 洋食 (yōshoku, Western cuisine). Less common ジキ (jiki) in 断食 (danjiki, fasting). Kun-readings: た.べる (ta.beru, to eat — the polite/standard verb), く.う (ku.u, to eat — masculine/casual / often rough). The split between たべる and くう is significant: たべる is universally polite, くう is informal-male and can sound vulgar in mixed company.

Memory aid: a lid over a bowl of warm food — the universal hot meal.