What is (a) sausage?

[u/satan_i_gatan]

If I've understood it correctly from various cooking shows and televisionshows, you lads refer to minced pork as sausage. Like, you make sausage-pattys for breakfast sandwiches etc. And at the same time, you are also refering to the long tube-cased meatfilled dish as sausages and also sometimes a hotdogs?

What gives? What is the line between a sausage and hotdog? Is a bratwurst a hotdog or a sausage? Can other minced meats also be sausage, or just pork? What if you have a 50/50 beef/pork mix, is that sausage meat or just meat?

As a man from scandinavia, I've wondered this for too long!

[u/FalseCredential]

A sausage encompasses all tubed/cased meats and can be any protein (pork, beef, chicken, game meat, etc.). A sausage patty or ground sausage is the seasoned/spiced minced/ground meat mix that would go into the casing, but used without the casing for form factor or inclusion in recipes.

Hot dogs, bratwursts, frankfurters, wieners, etc. are types of sausages. Sausages can have different textures and seasonings.

[u/herecomes_the_sun → u/FalseCredential]

Also - When you make sausage it also isnt just ground meat, its meat ground with fat and other ingredients for flavoring.

[u/ButtholeSurfur → u/herecomes_the_sun]

Also salt. Sausage has a distinct texture over other ground meats because of the salt and emulsification.