Taro Fries with Coriander Pesto

500 g taro
½ cup blend olive oil and rice bran oil
½ tsp SIDS CRAZY LEMON
1 lemon
1 bunch coriander, leaves & stalks separated
6 cloves garlic
1 tsp chili pepper flakes

Wear kitchen gloves and peel the taro; cut into thick slices shaped like French fries and soak in a bowl of lemony water (squeeze half a lemon into the water). Prepare the coriander pesto: wash the coriander and dry, then mince the leaves as fine as possible. Peel and chop the garlic and pound in a mortar with SIDS CRAZY LEMON until a paste forms. Set aside. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the taro and simmer for fifteen minutes until soft and thoroughly cooked. Drain. Heat a large frypan, add the oil blend and when hot, drop the taro “fries” and fry in the oil on all sides until crispy. Add the mashed garlic, coriander, chilli pepper flakes and stir the mixture for 30 seconds until fragrant. Transfer to a serving dish and eat warm with extra lemon quarters if desired.

History: This plant and its root is generally called taro, but it has different names in different countries like for instance eddoe, or malanga. The plant is called tales in Java, cocoyam in Ghana, taro in Tahiti, ndalo in Fiji, talo in Samoa, gabi in the Philippines, colcas in Arabic, kolokasi or kolokas in Cyprus, kalo in Hawaii and amateke in Rwanda. Taro is often referred to as "elephant ears" when grown as an ornamental plant.
Taro is one of the most ancient cultivated crops. Taro is found widely in tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and northern Australia and is highly polymorphic, making taxonomy and distinction between wild and cultivated types difficult. It is believed that they were domesticated independently multiple times, with authors giving possible locations as New Guinea, Mainland Southeast Asia, and northeastern India, based largely on the assumed native range of the wild plants. However, more recent studies have pointed out that wild taro may have a much larger native distribution than previously believed and wild breeding types may also likely be indigenous to other parts of Island Southeast Asia.
Archaeological traces of taro exploitation have been recovered from numerous sites, though whether these were cultivated or wild types can not be ascertained. They include the Niah Caves of Borneo, dated to <40,000 BC; Ille Cave of Palawan, dated to at least c. 11,000 BC; Kuk Swamp of New Guinea, dated to 10,200 to 9,910 cal BC; and Kilu Cave in the Solomon Islands dated to around c. 28,000-20,000 BC. It should be noted that in the case of Kuk Swamp, there is evidence of formalized agriculture emerging by about c. 10,000 BC, with evidence of cultivated plots, though which plant was cultivated remains unknown.
Taro were carried into the Pacific Islands by Austronesian peoples from around 1300 BC, where they became a staple crop of Polynesians, along with other types of "taros", like Alocasia macrorrhizos, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, and Cyrtosperma merkusii. They are the most important and the most preferred among the four, because they were less likely to contain the irritating raphides present in the other plants. Taro is also identified as one of the staples of Micronesia, from archaeological evidence dating back to the pre-colonial Latte Period (c. 900 - 1521 AD), indicating that it was also carried by Micronesians when they colonized the islands. Taro pollen and starch residue have also been identified in Lapita sites, dated to around c. 3,050 - 2,500 cal BC.