BALANCING ACT

It may be one of the most overused adjectives in food writing and conversation today: umami. Fun to say and delicious to savour. But its lesser known cousin yakumi has yet to enter the Australian lexicon, despite playing an equally important role in Japanese cuisine. If umami is the Top Gun of Japan’s national kitchen, yakumi is its Goose.

Granted, Japan might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of spice. Unlike its neighbouring countries across the East, who lead with fiery hits of chilli and piquant flavour bombs that burst