Monkees Can Cook. Say What?

Finally, it's been proven.  A monkey can cook better than me.


Turns out they prefer a baked slice of sweet potato to a raw slice (duh!).  But the reality is that scientists from Harvard and Yale found that chimps have the patience and foresight to resist eating raw food and to place it in a device meant to appear, at least to the chimps, to cook it.

As The New York Times quotes researchers, just like humans, "'Many primate species, including chimpanzees, have difficulty giving up food already in their possession and show limitations in their self-control when faced with food.'”

The chimps weren't actually offered baked vs. raw potato, but the opportunity to wait for a cooked slice of sweet potato a bit later (delayed gratification, anyone?), showing foresight and thought, researchers say.

Now, back to my cooking.  I admit I'm not much of a cook.  I don't really like it but am forced into it every night because I have two family members who really like to eat (and don't know an oven from an orangutan).  Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm okay with the basics -- broiled chicken or hamburger meat, cooked peas and pastas, but hand me a recipe and I go all ape-. . .. (sorry again).

 I'm quite a good baker (my chocolate chip cookies disappear right from the oven) but I just don't see chimps stowing those little chocolate chips in the buttery batter.  (Okay, I confess. I pop a few, too.)

It was known that chimps prefer cooked food, but it was an open question whether chimps had the patience to wait through the pretend “shake and bake” process, the NYT notes.  "And, the researchers wanted to know if the animals could understand 'that when something raw goes in there it comes out cooked,'” it quotes the researchers.

Ta da!  They do. So it seems these cute little animals really do know how to cook. Stupid them.  Now they'll have to do it every night!  Though I'm betting if they ate my cooking, they'd go back to raw.