What perfume has that friction?

My friendly local bookseller has just produced a gem of an Italian phrasebook, vintage 1930, for the survival of English travellers. It's not so much the many errors, or the silk linings, corset-covers and suchlike, or even the odd incomprehensible sentence (see the title of this post) that took me aback so much as the tone of the volume. For instance, in the section 'Restaurant e buffet' we have the following phrases:
10 This is overcooked
11 Cook this some more
12 Change this for [...]
13 This is not fresh
14 This is cold
15 Take this away
16 This is too tough - sweet - sour - underdone
17 I did not order this

and then, even more worryingly,

18 Give me a sharp knife.

The tone of the whole volume is rude, aggressive and arrogant. Is anybody surprised that there was a war? With stuff like this in our national pasts, I'm astonished the EU even functions.