Texas Barbecue Panel SXSW

Kevin Bronson, Lord of BuzzBands.la , weighed in on the Texas Barbecue panel at SXSW http://buzzbands.la/2009/03/19/sxsw-yelle-natalie-portmans-shaved-head-bbq/

and went directly to the meat of the matter.

Rock bands are great and all, but I started my day at the “BBQ the Texas Way” discussion at the Austin Convention Center and came away thinking barbecue might be a metaphor for life — at least the way panelists were lamenting how the general homogenization of society is destroying barbecue traditions. Other things I learned at the noontime chat moderated by author Joe Nick Patoski (”Willie Nelson: An Epic Life”): Indie-rock snobs are no match for barbecue snobs; mesquite vs. hickory is quite a rivalry; Bobby Seal, the Black Panther, once did a book called “Barbecuing With Bobby;” and Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Texas, does not provide forks for its patrons. “They’re at the end of your arms,” proprietor Rick Schmidt saays. “You were born with them.”