Palaver sauce or palava sauce is a type of stew widely eaten in West Africa, including Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone. The word palaver, meaning a talk, lengthy debate or quarrel, derives from the Portuguese language; palavra in general use means "speech" or "word", with its origins ultimately from the Late Latin noun parabola, meaning "speech" or "parable". It is unclear how this led to the name of the stew. One theory is that the spices used in the stew mingle together like raised voices in an argument. It has been thought of as having the power to calm tensions, or to cause them. Other names for the dish include kontonmire, kentumere, nkontommire and pla'sas.