Well, recipes are specifically exempt from copyright, but the text of them is not. If you had a recipe for "Lobster Thermadore" that was a close copy of another

Well, recipes are specifically exempt from copyright, but the text of them is not. If you had a recipe for "Lobster Thermadore" that was a close copy of another published version, that would be infringement. The basics of a recipe are hard not to duplicate, but if you start writing a lengthy description of how to do it, that enters a different territory. That seems like a decent analogy for this case.