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A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. When used as an adjective, the word sausage can refer to the loose sausage meat, which can be formed into patties or stuffed into a skin. When referred to as “a sausage”, the product is usually cylindrical and encased in a skin.

Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes from synthetic materials. Sausages that are sold raw are cooked in many ways, including pan-frying, broiling and barbecuing. Sausage-making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausage making is a natural outcome of efficient butchery. An Akkadian cuneiform tablet records a dish of intestine casings filled with some sort of forcemeat. Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the cleaned intestines, or stomachs in the case of haggis and other traditional puddings.

A sausage consists of meat cut into pieces or ground, mixed with other ingredients, and filled into a casing. Ingredients may include a cheap starch filler such as breadcrumbs or grains, seasoning and flavourings such as spices, and sometimes others such as apple and leek. In some jurisdictions foods described as sausages must meet regulations governing their content. They are composed of solid fat globules, dispersed in protein solution. The proteins function by coating the fat and stabilizing them in water. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Sausages classification is subject to regional differences of opinion. Various metrics such as types of ingredients, consistency, and preparation are used. Cooked sausages are made with fresh meats and then fully cooked. They are either eaten immediately after cooking or must be refrigerated. Examples include hot dogs, Braunschweiger, and liver sausage. Cooked smoked sausages are cooked and then smoked or smoke-cooked. They are eaten hot or cold but need to be refrigerated.

Fresh sausages are made from meats that have not been previously cured. They must be refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating. Examples include Boerewors, Italian pork sausage, siskonmakkara, and breakfast sausage. Fresh smoked sausages are fresh sausages that are smoked and cured. They do not normally require refrigeration and do not require any further cooking before eating.

Dry sausages are cured sausages that are fermented and dried. Some are smoked as well at the beginning of the drying process. They are generally eaten cold and will keep for a long time. Bulk sausage, or sometimes sausage meat or skinless sausage, refers to raw, ground, spiced meat, usually sold without any casing. Vegetarian sausage are made without meat, for example, based on soya protein or tofu, with herbs and spices. Some vegetarian sausages are not necessarily vegan and may contain ingredients such as eggs. Other countries use different systems of classification.

Germany, for instance, which produces more than 1200 types of sausage, distinguishes raw, cooked and precooked sausages. Raw sausages are made with raw meat and are not cooked. They are preserved by lactic acid fermentation, and they may be dried, brined or smoked. Most raw sausages will keep for a long time. Examples include cervelat, Jagdwurst, and Weißwurst. They may be heated after casing, and they will keep only for a few days. The United States has a particular shelf stable type called pickled sausages, commonly sold in establishments such as gas stations and delicatessens.

France: Montbéliard, Morteau, Strasbourg, Toulouse, etc. Germany: Frankfurt am Main, Thuringian sausage, Nuremberg, Pomerania, etc. United Kingdom: Cumberland, Chiltern, Glamorgan, Lincolnshire, Lorne, etc. Many nations and regions have their own characteristic sausages, using meats and other ingredients native to the region and employed in traditional dishes.