A sausage is ground meat mixed with spices and other ingredients, stuffed into a thin casing and shaped into a tube. You've probably eaten sausages at breakfast (like breakfast sausage links), at barbecues (like hot dogs or bratwurst), or on pizza (like pepperoni or Italian sausage).

Sausages have been made for thousands of years as a clever way to preserve meat and use every part of an animal. Different cultures developed their own styles: Germany is famous for bratwurst, Poland for kielbasa, Spain for chorizo, and Italy for dozens of regional varieties. Each type uses different meats, spices, and preparation methods, giving sausages their distinctive flavors.

The casing that holds a sausage together is traditionally made from cleaned animal intestines, though modern sausages often use artificial casings. Some sausages are meant to be cooked fresh, while others are cured, smoked, or dried so they last longer without refrigeration.

People sometimes use sausage metaphorically. If you've heard someone say “you don't want to see how the sausage gets made,” they mean that a finished product might look good even though the process of making it was messy or unpleasant. Watching how laws or policies are actually created, for example, can feel like watching sausage being made: the result might be fine, but the process isn't always pretty.