What exactly are sausages?

A look at their history 
 

Sausage is essentially meat combined with other herbs, spices, and ingredients. It is also available fresh or smoked. When fresh, sausage must be cooked before eating. When sausage is cured or dried, it is already cooked, so you can eat it straight away like a cold cut. What makes different types of sausage unique are the spices they are mixed with and how they are prepared. Different peoples and cultures all have their own cuisine, a unique set of ingredients and flavor combinations. Of course, sausages are just one example. You’ll find a wide variety of sausages in cuisines around the world, from hot, spicy Chorizo to mild Kielbasa, each with its own distinctive flavor. 
 
You may be surprised to learn that sausages were once considered lower-class food, something the wealthy would never think of eating. However, as sausages evolved over time, they became some of the most gourmet foods in the world. 

In the past, sausages were made from extra meat and scraps that the butcher would usually discard. Instead of throwing these scraps in the trash, people found a way to use them. They did this by mixing the scraps with fat and salt, preserving them in this way. Sausages were thus first used as a way to preserve extra meat that would otherwise have gone to waste. 

People have always used salt to give meat extra flavor and help it keep longer. It was what allowed explorers and migrants to survive long journeys across dangerous seas, with barrels of meat preserved in salt. As people grew accustomed to sausage over time, it became something they wanted to eat often, a main dish rather than simply a way to preserve leftovers. 
 
Originally, sausage was made using one of three methods: smoking, drying, or salting the meat. The earliest sausages were made exclusively from pork. Over time, more meats were added, and today there are sausages made from all kinds of meat. 

As sausage became more popular, people increasingly began to love and appreciate it not as a low-cost food but as something delicious, even gourmet. In response, cooks and butchers began using better cuts of meat, and the quality steadily improved to what it is today: a gourmet food with enough variety to suit every taste.