i couldn't resist the nerdsnipe and quickly googled it:
Recipes can be protected under copyright law if they are accompanied by “substantial literary expression.”
would be interesting to find out whether that recipe site filler text counts as "substantial literary expression" in front of a judge. it certainly doesn't pass my smell test
Note that that phrasing is terrible, the recipe can't be protected no matter what.
The page, including the recipe and the intro, can be protected. But if you extract the recipe verbatim and publish it without the intro it used to cooccur with, no one can stop you.
I said that this is the "received wisdom" on why recipe sites do this. I didn't say it would work. I didn't say that they think that's why they're doing it. But it is a popular theory.
