Cooked sausages are cooked immediately after preparation and before distribution. Like fresh sausages, they need to be refrigerated and reheated before serving. Unlike smoked fresh sausages, smoked cooked sausages almost always need to be refrigerated, too.

Liverwurst, including Braunschweiger, is a cooked sausage which can be spread as a filling for sandwiches or eaten on crackers. It goes bad fairly quickly.

Bologna (or “baloney”) is a cooked sausage made from pork and lard, although several varieties of “bologna” are made these days out of other meats or soybeans. It has a first name. Despite a relatively mild taste, traditional bologna is actually smoked and cured with sodium nitrate. That said, the popular American version may use artificial liquid smoke flavoring in lieu of actual smoking.

Mortadella [pictured] is the father of bologna, differing primarily by the inclusion of cubes of pork fat. It is made from pork, black pepper, myrtle berries, nutmeg, and coriander, as well as pistachio nuts. Like bologna, mortadella is pulverized into a cream before being extruded into casing.

Hot dogs (or “frankfurters”) are perhaps the most commonly eaten sausage in the United States, traditionally made from pork but commonly made from beef these days. (Or chicken or tofu, depending on the quality or target market of the dog.)

We all know that hot dogs arrive pre-cooked and can be eaten right out of the package (a revolting habit of my litter sister which makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.) This brings up an important distinction: while all cooked sausages are technically ready-to-eat, for the sake of categorization there is a distinction between “cooked sausages” and “brown-and-serve” sausages, which are delivered to you cooked but are technically fresh sausages that just happen to have been cooked for your convenience.