  The shift locus is the space of normalized polynomials in one complex
variable for which every critical point is in the attracting basin of infinity.
The method of sausages gives a (canonical) decomposition of the shift locus in
each degree into (countably many) codimension 0 submanifolds, each of which is
homeomorphic to a complex algebraic variety. In this paper we explain the
method of sausages, and some of its consequences.
  This is an expository paper.
