Culture is a set of values that have the capacity to carry itself to the future and reach the present from the past through various means. This dynamic structure, which originates from the natural structure of culture, can exhibit a stronger structure with the immediate detection and analysis of the outputs or discourses that host culture. One of the important outputs that contain a cultural element is works in the genre of travel, observation and memoirs. As it is known, such works not only shed light on the period in which they emerged, but also serve as a guide for the following periods that are nourished by the relevant period. Benefiting from this approach, detailed content regarding the past has also been reached in the memoirs of Aşçı Dede, who was born in Istanbul in 1828, graduated from Süleymaniye Junior High School, and during his military civil service duties in cities such as Istanbul, Erzurum, Erzincan, Damascus and Edirne, became involved in various religious orders and had a wide circle of friends, and retired from his profession with the rank of brigadier general. XIX. In this study, in which a comprehensive examination was made on the memoirs of Aşçı Dede in order to provide information about the religious-magical beliefs and practices of the Ottoman society in the 19th century; a voluminous content was encountered on different religious practices, witchcraft methods, evil eye beliefs, prediction of the future and dream interpretations, worships, rituals performed on special days and nights, etc. In this context, an attempt was made to shed light on the cultural dynamics of the period by determining the important data on the beliefs and social practices of the Ottoman period presented in Aşçı Dede's Memoirs.
Ottoman Society, Beliefs and Procedures with Religious-Magical Content, Folklore, Memoir, Cook Dede.