Perhaps you wouldn't have found that recipe in Google if they didn't include all that bullshit. Are you frustrated because you rarely get shown links in Google that are just the recipe, no fluff? Maybe they exist but you never get to see them.

They're playing by rules they didn't invent. The belief is this content gets indexed better than just recipes (which, when well written, are terse) and it should be placed above the recipe so it has higher priority. They might be mistaken but with the limited amount of information Google gives, and the fact that most places I stumble across on Google are doing it, I'm ready to believe it works.