Six Streets, Five Kitchens: Building a Tollcross Larder in a Single Afternoon

Tollcross is a junction before it is anything else — five roads arguing over a set of traffic lights — and that awkwardness is exactly what makes it such a good larder. Stand outside the King's Theatre and you are within a ten-minute walk of rice sold in ten-kilo sacks, rye bread that tastes of caraway and sourness, tahini in catering tins, frozen dumplings by the dozen, dried limes, smoked paprika, and a punnet of something you cannot pronounce but will absolutely finish.

Most people shop here by accident, on the way to the bus. This is a plan for shopping here on purpose.

Plan the bag before you plan the route

Three rules, and they are not negotiable.

Chilled things last. Heavy things last. And bring a proper bag — a tote, ideally, with a flat bottom, because a carrier bag of tinned tomatoes and a sack of rice is a two-handed job by the time you reach the lights.

Cash helps. Several of the smaller places are card-friendly now, but a tenner in your pocket has never yet been refused, and some of the best-value shelves are the ones with the handwritten price tags that never quite get updated.

Finally, go on a weekday afternoon if you can. Saturday around noon, everyone in the south of the city has the same idea at once, and the pavements between the theatre and the links turn into a very slow parade.

Stop one: the rice-and-chilli-oil end of Home Street

Start at the top, near the bus stops, and work downhill. The first stop sets the tone: a small Asian grocer where the shelves go all the way up and the aisle is one person wide. You are here for the big bag of rice, a jar of chilli oil with sediment at the bottom, noodles in shapes you did not know noodles came in, and a bag of frozen dumplings that will sit in your freezer and save your life on a Thursday.

The shopkeeper here is the type who asks what you are cooking before he asks what you want, and will steer you away from the expensive jar towards the one that his regulars actually buy. Let him. That is the whole point of shopping like this rather than ordering a click-and-collect.

Stop two: rye, sausage and something pickled

Cut across to Lauriston Place and the eastern European deli. This is the stop that changes how the week tastes. Rye bread, dense and dark, sliced thin. A length of smoked sausage. A jar of pickles that will outlast the bread by a fortnight. Something in a tub that the label calls cheese and your instincts call better than cheese.

The counter here is often served by the owner, who will tell you exactly how long the bread keeps, how to warm the sausage without ruining it, and which of the three near-identical jars is the one her family buys. Buy two of that. You will not be back before Tuesday.

Stop three: tahini, dates and bread that folds

Carry on towards the Brougham Street end and find the tight little shop with the flatbreads stacked by the till and the spices decanted into bags. Sumac. Dried limes. A tin of tahini big enough to be a commitment. Dates, if you want something to stop the bag being purely savoury business.

This is the sort of shop where the till might be a calculator and the queue is three people deep and nobody minds, because the person at the front is having a conversation about someone's cousin. Wait. You are on holiday in your own postcode.

Stop four: the cheese-and-olive finish

Push on towards the Bruntsfield edge, where the deli counters get a bit more continental. Olives from a tub, a wedge of something hard and salty, a bag of pasta that costs more than the supermarket version and is worth it roughly once a month. This is the stop where you buy one small, unnecessary, excellent thing — the anchor of the whole haul.

Stop five: the freezer and the walk home

Finish near Lochrin and Fountainbridge, where the last stop is whatever the neighbourhood currently offers by way of a refill or wholefoods counter — oats, lentils, nuts, dried fruit, a bag of flour if you are feeling ambitious. Buy your chilled items here and nowhere earlier, then walk back up to the lights with the bag getting steadily heavier and the afternoon quietly getting dark.

If you live further out, this is the point to get the bus, and there is no shame in it. Nobody has ever been judged on a Lothian Bus for carrying a leek.

What it actually costs

Be honest with yourself: a crawl like this can run to fifty quid if you let it. Done sensibly — one big staple, one protein, one treat, one bag of something frozen — you can feed two people well for four or five days on thirty to forty pounds, and the store cupboard ends up better stocked than it started.

The trick is buying the boring things in quantity and the interesting things in small amounts. A ten-kilo sack of rice is not extravagance. Six tiny jars of six different spice blends is.

Three meals from the haul

Twenty-minute Monday

Noodles, chilli oil, a spoon of tahini loosened with hot water and soy, the pickles on the side. Dumplings straight from frozen into a pan with a lid and a splash of water. This is not cooking so much as assembling, and it is the reason the crawl is worth the walk.

A slow Saturday breakfast

Rye bread, fried eggs with the smoked paprika, the salty cheese crumbled over the top, and a wedge of the flatbread warmed in the pan for whoever does not like rye. Coffee. No plans until eleven.

The batch job

Sausage sliced and browned, a tin of tomatoes, the dried limes pierced and dropped in, lentils, and a long simmer while you put the shopping away. Eat half. Freeze half. Congratulate yourself on a Tuesday when you remember it exists.

Small print

Opening hours around here are more of a suggestion than a contract, and a shop that is thriving in November may be a phone repair place by spring. Go with an open mind and a short list rather than a fixed itinerary. Ask the person behind the counter what they would buy with a tenner. Then buy that, and walk home the long way, past the theatre and the links and the lights, with a bag that smells faintly of spice and smoked sausage.

That is the Tollcross larder: not one shop, but six streets and an afternoon.