Story by Emmjay, Digital gastronomy by Warrigal Mirriyuula.

Well, the sub-atomic nuclear physics community and the Australian Butchers’ Association were stunned today by the publication in Pub’s Monthly of the ground-breaking research at the Pig’s Arms.

Pub’s Monthly reported that noted gastronomic scientist, Granny, has unequivocal evidence of the existence of the long-postulated Hog’s Bacon Particle.

The Hog’s Bacon particle is the last piece in the theory of everything jigsaw that has been sitting on a table in the front bar, near the jukebox since Buddy Holly died.

In essence, probably lemon essence, the Hog’s Bacon Particle is the subcutaneous doover that gives crackling its cracklingness.  Some pork roasts have crackling that doesn’t actually crackle at all while other roasts’ crackling is so crackly that dentists rub their hands together and plan for a new model Porsche.

Granny’s experimental evidence links the speed of the meat tray delivery van driven by DRMICK’s brother and the frequency that he had to stand on the breaks – that is the incidence of extremely rapid acceleration and deceleration – at the speed of lights in the inner west traffic grid – to the density of Hog’s Bacon particles in the crackling.

High density Hog’s Bacon particles accumulating in the subcutaneous lard deposits of the pork roast make for extremely crackly crackling.  In a statement to the media, Granny pointed out that she had been able to conclusively prove the existence of the Hog’s Bacon particle through careful observation of the multivariate factors involved in the creation not only of the universe, but more particularly in the creation of her roast pork rolls.

Granny criticised what she described as  “the ridiculous experimentation” by sub-atomic particle physicists working underground at CERN, saying that whereas they had spent over 17 billion Euros in the pursuit of the Hog’s Bacon particle, her roast pork rolls have been continuously available in the counter lunch menu at the Pig’s Arms since 1953 and now feature at the very affordable price of  $4.00 including optional apple sauce.  “Match that, you Hadron tonkers”, she said.

In an interesting twist, the IUG (International Union of Grammarians) threw a spaniel into the works by insisting that there has never been a Hog’s Bacon particle and that the missing piece in the theory of everything jigsaw on the table near the juke box in the front bar of the Pig’s Arms pub was a typographical error and that the real missing piece is in fact the Hog’s Bacon participle.

The IGU firmly believe that there is unequivocal evidence in Strunk and White of the existence of a fundamental participle that qualifies nouns but retains some properties of verbs like tense and government of objects – both at the astronomic and sub-atomic quantum levels.

The IUG point out the challenging idea that “crackling” is itself a participle and that that this indeed opens up the possibility that grammar is the underlying principle – even more so than mathematics, that allows scientists and philosophers to accurately describe the universe.

This observation is said to have provoked an unseemly scramble in the front bar of the Pig’s Arms with grammarians, butchers and sub-atomic particle physicists scrambling to put the last piece in the unifying theory of everything jigsaw.

Notwithstanding this contentious discovery, roast pork rolls will still be on the lunchtime counter menu at the Pig’s Arms – for $4.00 with optional apple sauce and Granny will be pleased to autograph all copies of the Pub’s Monthly, perhaps with a kind shout of a Trotter’s Ale celebrating her discovery.