A new angle shows up in this thread mainly concerned with chimps. Felix Warneken is interviewed by NewScientist (13 June 2015, paywall) concerning his attempts to teach chimpanzees to cook:
You discovered that the chimpanzees could transport raw food for cooking. Can you tell me more about that?
In the wild, chimpanzees tend to forage – they just snack while they go. But cooking requires you to take the food back to somewhere to do the cooking. And it’s not that easy. Even we humans sometimes can’t resist the urge to nibble as we are cooking our own dinners. But many of the animals were able to do it. We saw one chimp try very admirably to carry the food 4 metres to the cooking device.But unfortunately, he tried to carry it with his lips, so he kept “accidentally” eating it. Another chimpanzee would run over to the cooking site very quickly, holding the piece of potato as far away from himself as possible, seemingly so he wouldn’t be tempted. It was challenging for them, but many of the chimps were still able to anticipate cooking in the future and therefore save food for that future use. It was remarkable.
So the chimps weren’t permitted to actually cook; a device was rigged so that placing a raw food in one drawer and then shaking the device would result in a cooked food appearing in another drawer. It’s rather like giving a pet meds with a promise of treats afterwards, only better.
It also reminds me of a cat who made a habit of vomiting on the carpet. One day, having been given substantial warning of an impending episode, I picked him up and placed him on a discarded newspaper, and then rubbed his ears once he finished disgorging. For years after that, many a newspaper was ruined by him, whether or not I was there to remind him. One bright cat.
