Chew Over: What does "ethnic" food mean?

Is it a harmless euphemism for "foreign," or a more loaded word that means "suspicious?" A debate broke out at the London Restaurant Festival over the use of the term "ethnic food."

British food critic A. A. Gill called it "a pejorative, judgmental and unnecessary term invented by the French to describe food in the Michelin Guide that isn't French or Italian." Comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli countered, "Food defines who we are. People from different parts of the world eat differently—that's hardly headline news."

So is the term "ethnic food" insulting? And if it is, is there a better phrase to use to mean "food from other places"? Here's Bruce Palling's description of the debate in the Wall Street Journal.