If you’ve been mourning the loss of some of your favourite dining spots around town due to financial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, we feel your pain.

That’s particularly true for eateries that served dishes made with specific cultural familiarity and expertise.

However, there is is a current festival that is offering a variety of recipes and cooking videos that can help you to learn how to make some of these craveworthy food items at home.

It’s particularly timely as cooking has become such a popular pastime during the pandemic, and can be handy if another lockdown comes our way. Or if you find you're eating more at home these days but are maxing out your usual go-to recipes, here are some meal ideas you may not have considered.

B.C. Culture Days, which runs until October 25, is presenting a series of recipes and videos from the Surrey Fusion Festival that draw upon the rich mix of cultural and ethnic groups that have brought their flavourful recipes to Canada.

The information provided can teach viewers how to make everything from Indigenous bannock and Ecuadorian ceviche to Vietnamese salad rolls and the Indian ice cream kulfi falouda.

There are also recipes for Ugandan goat stew and kalo (millet bread), Nepalese momos (steamed dumplings), Nigerian egusi soup and fufu (pounded yam), and the ever-refreshing Guatemalan horchata (rice drink).

For those sad about the recent closure of Caribbean restaurant The Reef on Main Street, there’s a recipe for the Jamaican national dish of ackee and saltfish.

There are also favourites like whipped cream scones, jam-filled thumbprint cookies, and—everyone’s Canadian favourite—poutine (merci, Quebec!).

Check out the recipes and instructional videos at the B.C. Culture Days website. While doing so, the website also offers information about the various countries and cultures that these food and beverage items come from.