Chimpanzees have the cognitive ability to cook, according to new research, if only someone would give them ovens.

It’s not that the animals are ready to go head-to-head with Gordon Ramsay, but 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.

That is no small achievement. In a line that could easily apply to human beings, the researchers write, “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.”

But they found that chimps would give up a raw slice of sweet potato in the hand for the prospect of a cooked slice of sweet potato a bit later. That kind of foresight and self-control is something any cook who has eaten too much raw cookie dough can admire.