Ice

Ice, it's a funny thing at a fish market. We have a giant ice machine. We use it for everything - to ice down the fish in the walk-in, layer the bottom of the fish case, keep our oysters & mussels displayed on and lastly, to help our customers keep their seafood cold for the ride home. We are not allowed to sell ice per order of some state licensing office . . . we can only give it away. I gladly give ice out to my customers. I like their seafood to stay fresh not only for their enjoyment but so I don't get blamed for selling them "bad fish." It gets a little repetetive saying "Do you need ice in the bag?" so we vary the ways we ask. "You heading right home Earl or do you need some ice?", "You going to be more than 20 minutes, would you like some ice?", "ice in the bag today?" you get the picture. I usually encourage the indecisive "better safe than sorry." I love it when our regulars bring their own cooler with an ice pack. It saves me the jaunt to the back of the market to scoop ice into a plastic bag. On good days when we are organized and prepared we have a cooler w/ice by the counter. Most days we do the jaunt a few hundred times.

The most infamous ice story is the woman who bought 6 Maine shrimpmeat, yes I said 6, and then asked to have that on ice. Now at $4.99lb, 6 shrimp meat was only a few cents. So for a few cents she got her 6 shrimpmeat in a plastic bag, a plastic bag of ice and then a special "cooler"bag we give out for seafood on ice (otherwise the melting ice just wrecks a paper bag). I basically paid this woman to come get 6 shrimpmeat! We've had people not understand why we don't put the lobsters right on ice in their cooler, ask for ice for their goat cheese they bought at the farmers' market and my most recent favorite "can I have a bag of ice for my drink outside?" from a man who was obviously not sober. I told him he could bring his drink in and I'd put a few cubes in for him. One older lady questions my husband at the fish case - "do I want iced tea?" um, no . . . as we snicker to ourselves. Then there are the summer residents who think they are local and tell me how they want their seafood packed in the ice "put ice on the bottom and then put it inside another bag with some on top . . . " Oh really?! Oh, and the regular who digs in the ice display under the oysters to "top off" his oysters. The one I will never understand is the people who make a big deal about being picky about the freshness of their seafood or buy something for sushi and then refuse ice. Now, I don't care if you live 10 minutes around the corner, if you are eating the tuna for sushi, KEEP IT ON ICE!! And if you are buying mussels and then going grocery shopping on a hot day in the summer and you refused to take ice from your local fishmonger who offered and you get home and find your mussels are bad and you call to complain . . .