If you've ever had a creamy purple drink at a boba shop or sampled a bowl of poi alongside your kalua pork at a luau, you've tasted one of the world's first cultivated plants: taro. This starchy root ...

It’s a sweet, vanilla-coconut flavor that shows up in boba tea and ice cream, and the main ingredient in both savory, crunchy chips and perfectly bouncy, cakey doughnuts — but, before it gets ...