Bridget Jones’s Diary: Blue Soup

Can you believe that Bridget Jones’s Diary (the hit romantic comedy based on Helen Fielding’s bestselling novel) is celebrating its 20th birthday next year?

As if you needed reminding, Fielding’s iconic tale follows 30-something Bridget, a London singleton who’s grappling against her many ‘imperfections’ — from her weight, to her job, to her lack of a man.

We meet our hero at the start of a new year, when she’s vowing to make several changes in her life. She plans to quit smoking, lose 20lbs, always remember to put last night’s pants in the laundry basket, and find a “nice, sensible boyfriend to go out with.”

“And not to continue to form romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts.”

Of course, there’s a lot in this brilliant 2001 flick that’s aged about as well as a bowl of milk — it reeks of sexism (hello, Mr “Titspervert” Fitzherbert), it’s fat-phobic (yes, those scales really do read 9 ½ stone), and its implausibility is laughable (owning a Zone 1 flat on an assistant’s salary and landing a TV job with zero experience? Easy peasy).

That said, much of what Bridget represents still feels strikingly pertinent in 2020, and as journalist Anna Rhodes brilliantly puts in the 2016 article, If You Think Bridget Jones Is No Longer Relevant, You Have Forgotten What She Stands For, it’s her quest for perfection that hits home for most of us.

“Bridget’s constant battle with her weight and quitting smoking is also a great comfort to many — the pursuit for perfection that never happens. Fielding showed us that we can strive to be the skinniest, or the healthiest, or the one who fits in with an ultra-chic crowd — but it’s bloody difficult, and it may just be better to accept yourself as you are.”

For me, this sentiment is no more true than on Bridget’s birthday, when she attempts to whip up a three-course dinner for her closest friends.

“Where the fuck is the fucking tuna? This is Bridget Jones, for Sit Up Britain, searching for tuna.”

Bridget begins with impressive intentions, with a menu of velouté of celery, char-grilled tuna on a velouté of cherry tomatoes coulis with confit of garlic and fondant potatoes, and — to finish — confit of oranges with Grand Marnier Crème Anglaise.

What her dinner guests end up with, however, is something pretty different, and even with Mark Darcy on hand to provide main-course omelettes, there’s not much that can be done to salvage Bridget’s blue soup starter and marmalade dessert.

Toasting to their hilarious friend and her disastrous culinary skills, her best pals declare:

“To Bridget! Who cannot cook. But who we love, just as she is.”

From my perspective, I don’t think Bridget Jones’s Diary was ever just a tale about love, or finding the right man. It’s about friendship, too, and the way in which only our very best friends can accept (and put up with) what we consider to be our very worst flaws.

In spite of Bridget’s ‘weaknesses’— her terrible taste in men, her frequent burbling, her blatant drinking problem, and her awful singing voice, it’s her urban family — Jude, Shazza and Tom — who remain the constant in her chaotic, topsy-turvy life. Even when she does feed them blue soup.

So, as an ode to this totally wonderful film and its much-underrated celebration of friendship, I decided to brave Bridget’s blue soup recipe — and it’s actually SO delicious. Add the food colouring if you aren’t too put off by the idea of eating bright blue liquid, otherwise it works fine without.

I found my recipe on food.com.

To make 4 servings of Bridget Jones’s blue soup, you’ll need the following:

• 1 leek, diced
• 1 celery, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 potatoes, chopped
• 700ml chicken stock
• 230ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• Salt and pepper, for seasoning
• A splash of blue food colouring

Recipe

• Combine all the ingredients into a saucepan (apart from the food colouring) and cook on a medium heat for 30 mins, until the potatoes have turned to mush.
• Mash up the potato and vegetable mixture, or if you’re impatient, use a food processor and blitz the ingredients. Be sure to do so when the mixture isn’t piping hot, and don’t do a Bridget — make sure the lid is on properly.
• After the mixture is puréed, add a few drops of blue food colouring and stir in.

As always, if you give this recipe a go yourself, please drop me a line at @fromfilmtofork on Instagram. I’d love to see your creations! x