Originally Posted by
inlanikai
My take as speculation:
2) If the OP was in coach on a full flight, the FA maybe was looking for overhead bin space to stow a carry-on and found a soft small bag and asked "who's is this and what is in it". A common occurrence IME. Upon hearing "food", the FA had their excuse to pull it, albeit the reasoning was bogus, IMO.
That's what I initially thought, but then I saw this in the OP:
"
So, I took the food out of the canvas bag, and commented (in a carefully bland and polite tone) that I had never read or heard that rule before and wondered if it was a new one. She said it had always been that way." (Emphasis added.)
Thus, it does not appear that the canvas bag itself was removed from the overhead bin.