When I was young, there was a fish vendor who would come by on his bicycle every
morning with the fresh catch of the day. The fish were iced in a basket strapped
onto a carrier at the back of the bike. Later on, he exchanged his bicycle for
a motorbike, while still retaining the air horn that signaled his arrival every
day. A few years later, news spread that the ice used to preserve fish at the
dock was high in ammonia. Everyone slowly ditched the fish vendor and started
buying fish from the supermarket. Supermarkets were new to us then, and no one
knew where the fish came from, so that erased everyone’s worries about
ammonia-poisoned fish.
