There was a carriage full of people eating happily, a scrum of camera crews, a dog called Figgy surreptitiously gathering fallen scraps, some bemused tourists and two police officers – presumably in case the protest picnic turned nasty.
Sarah Hardcastle, in a T-shirt reading "women who eat wherever the fuck they want", produced a bottle of juice neatly relabelled "bloody feminist cocktail".
"It's very bitter," she explained.
The gathering in a London underground train carriage was a response to a controversial Facebook group entitled Women Who Eat on Tubes, featuring surreptitious mobile phone photographs of just that.
Hardcastle, an advertising copywriter, was already wearing the T-shirt when she heard Lucy Brisbane McKay confront film-maker Tony Burke on the Radio 4 Today programme on Friday, and realised gratefully that she and her friends were not the only ones who found his Facebook and Tumblr pages creepily misogynist.
It was, Burke said, an art project, mere reportage – "an observational study".
Julia Bohanna disagreed. "I write about art and that's rubbish," she said. "You only have to look at captions commenting on the size of a burger a woman is eating. It's voyeuristic bullying, turned on a group which may include many vulnerable people. The mere idea that these photographs could be called high art is borderline hilarious."
The Facebook group was started by Burke in 2011, with its numbers swelling to more than 20,000 in recent weeks following widespread media attention and criticism. It was briefly deleted on Friday, then reinstated as a closed group.
Brisbane McKay, a politics and sociology student, had been slightly apprehensive about taking on Burke – conscious of the vicious trolling experienced by some women who have raised their voices on feminist subjects. But, she said, most of the reaction had been supportive.
The picnic – almost stymied by a meltdown of the Circle line after a signal failure – was planned as a more public response, and rapidly attracted 400 followers on Facebook. More than 50 turned up to the protest picnic bearing items including sushi and sandwiches, crisps and apples.
Brisbane McKay and her friend and fellow organiser Alexis Calvas sat side by side peeling and eating bananas: the money shot for many of the anonymous posters to Burke's sites.
Tilly FitzMaurice had brought giant bags of crisps marketed as mansize, and a fistful of Yorkie bars – advertised with slogans including "it's not for girls" and "man fuel for man stuff".
FitzMaurice was aiming to demonstrate that a woman could cope with the truck driver's favourite chocolate snack.
Hardcastle said: "Some people have asked us: 'Why are you standing up about this? Why aren't you tackling a real cause?' But you can't do everything – and when you can do something, it's better than doing nothing."
The tourists realised that a carriage full of self-proclaimed feminists, including a young male barrister, was probably unusual enough to snap. The transport police visibly relaxed and moved to stand chatting a carriage-length away.
A handwritten sign reading "best picnic ever" was passed around and held up for the cameras. "We should do it again," someone said – to widespread agreement.
