Summer sausage is a semi-dry, tangy fermented sausage of cured beef and pork — sometimes venison or all beef — seasoned with salt, mustard seed, black pepper and garlic, fermented to a sour pH and then cooked or low-temperature smoked until firm. Named because it keeps without refrigeration through warm months, it is a North American and Central European staple eaten cold in thin coins, on crackers, on a board or in a sandwich.