Fresh & uncured

Fresh-and-uncured is the editorial completeness category for meat preparations that aren't cured or aged in any meaningful sense — fresh Italian sausage, fresh chorizo, merguez, bratwurst, fresh kielbasa. These products are technically charcuterie-adjacent (they use traditional spice mixes and casings) but aren't preserved through cure, fermentation, or smoking. The category exists in cured-meat editorial coverage primarily for context: many of the same producers who make cured products also make fresh sausage; many of the same regional spice traditions show up in fresh and cured forms; and visitors who buy 'sausage' at any deli counter encounter both fresh and cured products and benefit from understanding the difference.

Fresh sausages have short shelf life (1-3 days refrigerated) and must be cooked thoroughly before eating. They're essentially seasoned ground meat in casings — fresh, perishable, and substantively different from any cured-meat product. Many traditional cooked preparations begin with fresh sausage that's then cooked into broader dishes (fresh chorizo into paella, Italian sausage into pasta, bratwurst grilled).

Editorially, this category gets less coverage on the site than the cured categories — but exists for completeness.