Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> > Braunschweiger and liverwurst are both basically pate
> > with a different name on the label.
>
> Not exactly. All braunschweiger is liverwurst, but not
> all liverwurst is braunschweiger.

Irrelevant to the issue of whether they count as pate
and can be used in most ways that pate can be used.
Most pates found in stores use a liver base, some even a
pork or beef liver base like liverwurst. Some pate
recipes include smoke flavor, some don't, so the
difference between specific braunschweiger and general
liverwurst isn't effected by that point. The fact
that pate recipes without liver exist also doesn't
effect the issue until we get into heating the pate,
thus the mapping from braunschweiger to pate is good
but not complete.

Many pate recipes have nice extras like herbs or wine.
Various types of liverwurst can be moved to similar
functionality by blending herbs or wine into them. Not
an exact match but the OP was asking about alternate
uses not exact matches. Various types of liverwurst
make an okay starting point if your goal is just some
pate rather than a very specific pate recipe.

Going in the opposite direction from the initial post,
as much as I like turkey/chicken/duck/goose liver, I
wonder how much effort it would be to make a pate from
them that would substitute towards use in sandwiches.
Braunschweiger and other types of liverwurst are made
with beef and/or pork livers, but using bird livers
should work okay. Should be straightforward so the
next time I see a package of bird livers on sale while
I'm travelling for work I'll try it.