Crisco and Apricot Flan

The man in the hat like fruit flans, peach and orange, currant and apricot, and Flan O’Brien whom he had read about in a periodical or newspaper. He liked ox-tail gumbo and soda-biscuits and anything that tasted like anis or cloves. Golf he found childish, preferring checkers or trump the fox, a card game he'd learned from his great-great grandfather, a Quaker with hairy arms and a coughing laugh. Bunt cakes and tortes and tiny cupcakes with frosting and curlicues, anything baked with Crisco and lard. He ate anything that was put in front of him, mealworms and saltpetered cakes and chocolaty Swiss Rolls rolled in confectionary sugar and shredded coconut. He wolfed down everything within reach, never stopping long enough to chew, morsels and wee gambits of food, or wipe the crumbs from the fop of his trousers.