Hectoring Professor

I am with a group of about 10 people involved in something similar to Desert Island Discs. If there were only 5 foods left in the world which would we each choose to survive on? Similarly which 5 books would we keep? A bearded professor chooses 5 unfamiliar spices from the Middle East. He thought he should be experimental. His books are all chosen from non-Western sources. He challenges one student (a smug devout Christian from my college days) on all his choices. I am slightly suspicious of this professor as he seems to be goading the others to alter their decisions. I am excluded from his hectoring due to my safe (and cowardly) choice to include the Qur'an in my otherwise Western selection.