The first time I ever heard the words “Sierra Leone,” I was sitting in a high school classroom in New Mexico, staring at a Model UN assignment that felt like someone had spun a globe and stopped it with their eyes closed. We were a tiny delegation headed to the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, and suddenly we had to become experts on a place that, to us, felt impossibly distant — a name from a map, a headline, a heartbreak.

Back then, in the early 2010s, the world only seemed to know Sierra Leone for its scars. Civil war. Child soldiers. The kind of stories that travel faster than anything beautiful ever could. The most famous book about the country wasn’t about its beaches or food or music; it was about the kids forced to pick up guns instead of pencils.

But once you peel back the headlines, Sierra Leone becomes something else entirely. A place of thick, lush green. A coastline so beautiful it hurts a little. Dozens of tribes with their own languages, rhythms, and histories. And one of the few West African countries where English rolls off the tongue as a first language because of its time under British rule. Freetown — even the name feels like a story — one of the first places where freed slaves were resettled, a city built on a promise the world rarely keeps.

And like every West African nation touched by empire, trade, and resilience, Sierra Leone tells its history through food.

Punky stew — pumpkin and groundnut stew — may not sound like much, but it’s the kind of dish that anchors a household. Pumpkin or butternut squash cooked down until it softens into velvet. Groundnuts crushed into a thick, rich sauce. Tomatoes, onions, whatever vegetables or bits of protein the cook can spare. Served with rice or cassava. Humble ingredients turned into something warm, filling, deeply human.

Its roots reach back to the land itself. Pumpkins have been grown here for as long as anyone can remember, hardy and sweet, a staple of West African soil. Groundnuts arrived later — carried by Portuguese and Spanish ships in the 16th century — and the region embraced them instantly. The combination is everything West African cuisine does best: sweetness balanced with nuttiness, comfort balanced with fire.

Punky stew is a dish for families, for gatherings, for the kind of nights when the pot sits in the center of the table and everybody leans in with a spoon. It adapts to whatever you have, which is why it survives. Sierra Leoneans are masters of making food taste like abundance even when the times aren’t generous.