When I just came to Istanbul I was obsessed with getting the highest quality food the money could buy. Istanbul food markets are the horns of plenty with most pungent cheesed, the plumpest olives, the most succulent tomatoes. Moscovite habits die hard! In time I have discovered that good Istanbul home cooks know better and have a few tricks under their belt to get down their cost without going as much down on the quality. And we don’t have talk coupons here.

1. Choose Where to Shop

There is a plethora of places in Istanbul where you can do your food shopping: packaged-food-and-staples-abundant supermarkets, your downstairs bakkal with a helpful friendly owner, şarkuteri (deli) featuring ready-made solutions for your breakfast, lunch and dinner, vibrant markets toured by the local women with trolleys and mad house of the weekly pazaar in your neighborhood.

Its a no-brainer that buying things from a supermarket is more savvy than from a şarkuteri (deli). Yet another level of excellence is to get your supplies from pazar, weekly market that takes place in your area. On Saturday head out to Beşiktaş or get up early on Sunday to inspect the Black Sea countryside wonders on sale at Inebolu Pazarı. Certain vendors and producers who have no access to retail channels otherwise tour the Istanbul neighborhoods and offer good deals and hard-to-find-elsewhere food items

As you choose the type of the shopping venue be aware of the neighborhood: as a rule of thumb in Istanbul the more Western it looks the higher premium you are expected to pay for your food. I am always amazed by how the prices for essentially the same olives and the cheeses start at 9 -11 TL in Eminönü and the starting price goes to 20 TL as you cross the Marmara Sea to Kadikoy market. And I am not even taking about places such as like İlgi Kuruyemiş Evi at Bagdat Caddesi.

2. Get to Know Your Vendors

In Turkey you get to appreciate the value of the relationships. And you can unlock that value when stacking your Istanbul kitchen pantry as you build relationships with your vendors. Which not only makes your shopping experience more pleasant but also more financially viable.

To build relationships you need to show some loyalty and you can do so by becoming a regular. Instead of hoping from one plane to another I have my favorite artisanal preserves seller, dry fruit and nut vendor, fish monger and a green grocer. I have picked them for the quality of their goods, reasonable prices and great service and I look no further when buying those goods.

The artisanal preserves seller offers a lot of free tastings to me and my customers during the food tours. I receive unbeatable discount and service at the dry fruits and nuts vendor. The greengrocer always sneaks in some free-bees in my bag. My fish monger folks offer me tea and wave their greetings from their station where they busily peel the fish even when I only pass by.

And why? Because I bother to invest in building the relationships. After spending significant amount of time at the markets I have noticed how locals willingly engage into the chats with the vendors they are buying from. Asking questions about the products, sharing their cooking plans or at least dropping some comments about the weather. And the shopkeepers eagerly picking up the chat. And this is building relationships. Because the shopkeepers offer you more than just their products but also some of their attention and time. And if you reciprocate they will appreciate it for sure. And well.. monetary benefits will follow.

3. Research The Products You Often Use

You need to get to know your products to understand when you unnecessarily overpay. Take the olive oil. I am convinced that in Istanbul it just doesn’t pay off to splash on olive oil. I have been buying a lot of those fancily packed extra extra virgin oils and got disappointed every time. 46 TL-a-liter bottle of Erkence from TA-ZE, a shop by the Turkish olive oil giant Taraş, could easily compare with the 15 TL-a-liter I get from my preserves vendors who carefully source it from a producer in Iznik. And both can be matched by the 5-TL-a-liter olive oil made with stone-press that I bought during our trip to Cunda bordering the Greek Islands and famed for the insane competition of the old school olive oil producers.

Furthermore, there was another revelation awaiting for me: for many cooks 15 TL-a-liter I pay in Istanbul is an outrageously high price for olive oil even put on the table as seasoning of the prepared food. Let alone the cooking (think zeytinyağlı, dishes cooked in olive oil) where many home cooks (and unfortunately some restaurant) resort to riviera (olive oil according to the international classification), a combination of virgin and refined olive oil.

And then .. who knew.. I got to know that hazelnut oil is a cheaper and quite wonderful alternative to olive oil when cooking (but not for zeytinyağlı). Research and experiment with products you often buy and you will definitely find out pockets of opportunity to cut your spendings.

4. Act As If You Are Buying Clothes

In Turkey it is easy to be savvy about finding good deals for clothes shopping. A textile superpower it offers you abundant opportunities to shop at the export reject places such as Beyoğlu Iş Hanı in Istanbul for real-brand-clothes with minor defects. Why not to apply the same principle for the food shopping?

Did you ever consider buying cracked eggs? Well, some bakeries and pastry shops do since it’s a great way to cut down on the cost of a major ingredient. Trace down an egg vendor at a pazar in your neighborhood and ask if the sell cracked eggs. You will find out that the taste is not anyhow compromised and the whole deal is very justified if you plan a major baking or breakfast egg making in the near future.

Also if your baking is in the Turkish domain (börek, poğaca etc) and you will be using beyaz peynir (feta cheese) you should know that no self-respecting Istanbul home cook puts just any cheese into the baked goodies. For this purpose they would head out to their cheese vendor and inquire about “kırıntı peynir“, leftovers and assorted cuts of cheeses which are no good for sale but perfect for your börek.

5. Inspect Your Fridge Before Shopping

What you do with food leftovers or whether you have any leftovers on the first place makes a dramatic impact on the cost of your cooking. If Istanbul home cooks could get hold of those people from the American cooking TV-shows who discard half of their ingredients those TV cooks would be minced and turned into the börek stuffing before they knew. While in the States an average person throws away about 1 pound (about half a kilo) of food Istanbul home cooks fight wastage.

When I think of börek, the backbone of Turkish home cooking served for breakfast and afternoon tea I can’t stop thinking that it really is a quintessence of the no-food-thrown-away concept. Anything which was your meal yesterday and will not last till tomorrow can become the börek stuffing. Spinach stew, rice, chicken, and what not..

My mother-in-law is phenomenal about it: she makes out-of-this-word mücver (zucchini fritters) virtually of rests - stale feta cheese and stacks of parsley, dill and rocket which are so often thrown away otherwise. Whenever we use any parsley or dill we just chop the stacks, put them to the deep freezer and when the time comes - all goes into the mücver. “People say how can you put rocket stacks into mücver. But when they try it - soft with little crunch - they don’t question any more”.