On the early modern stage, cooks are fleshy and temperamental. Mimicking the sensory impressions of the kitchen—including the odours of sweat, fat, or frying—these seventeenth-century makers have something of a Falstaffian zest for the banquets they prepare for others. They point to the creativity inherent in the art of cookery and also imply that the cook's body plays an important role in the processes of creating new, consumable fancies. Ben Jonson's Lickfinger in The Staple of News (performed 1625) and Philip Massinger's Furnace in A New Way to Pay Old Debts (performed c. 1625 or 1626) repeatedly call attention to their bodies. Lickfinger, with his allusive name, points to the symbiotic relationship between the cook's senses and the perfection of his craft. Likewise, Furnace is just as fiery as the materials with which he works. In contrast to our own post-Cartesian perspective of the physical self as distinct from the mind, the early moderns understood their bodies as embedded within an animate environment, shaped by the Galenic humours, and never self-contained. As this essay will show, the concept of bodily instinct, particularly the instinct of the cook, illustrates another aspect of early modern understandings of the body. In turning to instinct, the cooks discussed here are able to harness their bodily resources and felicitous skills in the kitchen to transmit their fancies to the dishes they create.