page_title: Sausage
section_title: Nordic countries
hierarchical_section_title: Sausage / National varieties / Europe / Nordic countries
caption_attribution_description: Sausages on a Barbecue in Osloo. 1/25 handhold, thanks to VR II
context_page_description: Sausages are a 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. Some sausages include other ingredients for flavour.
  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. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may then be removed.
  Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying, smoking, or freezing. Some cured or smoked sausages can be stored without refrigeration. Most fresh sausages must be refrigerated or frozen until they are cooked.
context_section_description: Nordic sausages (Danish: pølse, Norwegian: pølsa/pølse/pylsa/korv/kurv, Icelandic: bjúga/pylsa/grjúpán/sperðill, Swedish: korv) are usually made of 60–80% very finely ground pork, very sparsely spiced with pepper, nutmeg, allspice or similar sweet spices (ground mustard seed, onion and sugar may also be added). Water, lard, rind, potato starch flour and soy or milk protein are often added for binding and filling. In southern Norway, grill and wiener sausages are often wrapped in a lompe, a potato flatbread somewhat similar to a lefse.
  Virtually all sausages will be industrially precooked and either fried or warmed in hot water by the consumer or at the hot dog stand. Since hot dog stands are ubiquitous in Denmark (known as Pølsevogn) some people regard pølser as one of the national dishes, perhaps along with medisterpølse, a fried, finely ground pork and bacon sausage. The most noticeable aspect of Danish boiled sausages (never the fried ones) is that the casing often contains a traditional bright-red dye. They are also called wienerpølser and legend has it they originate from Vienna where it was once ordered that day-old sausages be dyed as a means of warning.
  The traditional Swedish falukorv is a sausage made of a grated mixture of pork and beef or veal with potato flour and mild spices, similarly red-dyed sausage, but about 5 cm thick, usually baked in the oven coated in mustard or cut in slices and fried. The sausage got its name from Falun, the city from where it originates, after being introduced by German immigrants who came to work in the region's mines. Unlike most other ordinary sausages it is a typical home dish, not sold at hot dog stands. Other Swedish sausages include prinskorv, fläskkorv, köttkorv and isterband; all of these, in addition to falukorv, are often accompanied by potato mash or rotmos (a root vegetable mash) rather than bread. Isterband is made of pork, barley groats and potato and is lightly smoked.
  In Iceland, lamb may be added to sausages, giving them a distinct taste. Horse sausage and mutton sausage are also traditional foods in Iceland, although their popularity is waning. Liver sausage, which has been compared to haggis, and blood sausage are also a common foodstuff in Iceland.
caption: Sausages on a barbecue in Oslo
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3X", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Capture One 5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:12:12 16:07:20", "Image Artist": "", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "340", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "908", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "968", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2654", "EXIF XResolution": "300", "EXIF YResolution": "300", "EXIF ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF DateTime": "2009:12:12 16:07:20", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:12:12 16:07:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:12:12 16:07:20", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "49471/10653", "EXIF ApertureValue": "24361/8200", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "190", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5952", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3968", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}