ATALAR KÜLTÜ VE YEMEĞİN KUTSALLIĞI: GASTRONOMİ DİSİPLİNİNDE RİTÜEL PRATİKLERİN YERİ (THE CULT OF ANCESTORS AND THE SANCTITY OF FOOD: THE PLACE OF RITUAL PRACTICES IN THE DISCIPLINE OF GASTRONOMY)

This study aims to examine the ritualistic food and drink practices shaped within the framework of the ancestral cult (atalar klt) in Turkish culture, with a focus on cultural continuity, collective memory, and perceptions of sacredness.The ancestral cult is addressed not merely as a set of beliefs related to death, but as a symbolic system mediating solidarity, belonging, and identity construction among the living.Drawing upon diverse ethnographic and regional examples, the study analyzes ritual food practices associated with postmortem commemorations held on the 3rd, 7th, 40th, 52nd days and annual anniversaries.Employing a qualitative research design, the study utilizes document analysis to examine a broad corpus of scholarly sources and field research, and thematic coding was applied through content analysis.The findings reveal that food practices associated with ancestral cults are not only traditional customs but also ritual forms that sustain collective memory and reproduce social structure.Regional practices such as the offering of bitter coffee during "Devr" gatherings in Mardin, distribution of lahmacun and pastries in Gaziantep, and the placement of food at gravesites among the Altai Turks illustrate the layered and localized expressions of this phenomenon.The discussion highlights the ritual functions of food in the construction of sacred time, transmission of cultural heritage, and maintenance of social equilibrium, emphasizing the necessity of investigating food practices within the cultural context of the gastronomy discipline.