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An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow end the Cristero War in Mexico

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1917-U.S. Virgin Islands purchased from Denmark

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Here's a confession: I'm not a huge fan of turkey. Not a huge fan of mashed potatoes or cranberries or buttered things, either. What I do love -- and I mean love -- about Thanksgiving, though, is the dessert.

Keep your oversized birds and your baby food side dishes. Sit me down with a hot, hunking piece of apple pie a la mode and I'm set for the winter.

(click here for full res)
Here's a look at the top nine pie types Americans are eating this Thanksgiving:

And a few extra pie facts for good measure:

Apparently, the first pies were filled with meat and called coffins, which could either be a total misnomer or completely accurate (probably both).

Mini, sliced and half pies make up 24 percent of pies bought. Yay portion control.

Recent growths in popularity for blueberry and cherry pies can be attributed to the public's desire for antioxidants. Because nothing screams "healthy" like your third slice of blueberry pie.

Pies are slowly starting to challenge cupcakes for title of "trendiest dessert."

chart via Coupon Cabin / pie facts via NPR
Written by Foodbeast's Dominique Zamora

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The Most Popular Thanksgiving Pies: A Pie Pie Chart

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Here's a confession: I'm not a huge fan of turkey. Not a huge fan of mashed potatoes or cranberries or buttered things, either. What I do love -- and I mean love -- about Thanksgiving, though, is the dessert. Keep your oversized birds and your baby food side dishes.

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Food Timeline: history notes-pie & pastry

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Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photos by Thinkstock.

If you're planning on stuffing your face with pie on Saturday in honor of the geometric ratio whose digits march on to infinity, you'll probably take two things for granted. The first is that the pie will be round-after all, if pies weren't circular, their only relationship to pi would be homophonous. The second is that the pie will be sweet. Whether you prefer peach or apple, cream or custard, in modern-day America, pie equals dessert.

It didn't always. In medieval England, pie began as a decidedly savory affair. The word pie likely derives from magpie, the bird known for collecting odds and ends in its nest. This etymology reflects the fact that pie eaters were not picky: They happily supped on chickens, pigeons, rabbits, and just about any other animal you could swaddle in crust. "Eat crow" and "four and 20 blackbirds" aren't just common sayings but holdovers from the era when crow was a common pie filling. (According to some accounts, their feet made useful handles in a pre-oven mitt era.) Alas, these pies' crusts were nothing like the layers of flaky, buttery stuff that are the main point of eating pie today. Medieval pie crust was purely functional, a tough vessel that had to be cracked open in order to scoop out the delicious crow therein. Fittingly, it was known as a "cofyn."

Today, you'd be horrified if you ordered a pie and someone tried to serve you a crow baked in tough crust. So how did these semiedible avian tombs evolve into the sweet dish we know and love? The answer has a little to do with the peculiar way words evolved as they crossed the Atlantic and a lot to do with America's insatiable lust for sugar.

Early prototypes of sweet pie did exist in medieval England, but they were distinguished from their crow-filled brethren by the name "tarts." One recipe for apple tart dating back to 1379 instructs bakers to "Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and reysons and Perys and wan they are wel brayed colourd wyth Safroun wel and do yt in a cofyn and do yt forth to bake wel." (A little vague, no?) But this ur-pie wouldn't have tasted very good to us, because it didn't have any sugar in it. At the time, sugar was so rare and expensive that it was mainly used as decoration and a symbol of wealth.

By the 1700s, the British had established sugar colonies in the Caribbean, allowing the sweet stuff to finally go mainstream. But by then, savory pies were firmly entrenched in the culture. It was in America that pie would finally realize its full, syrupy potential.

When colonists brought English recipes to America, something got lost in translation. What the English called a tart, they started calling a pie. This lexical difference, some authors have ventured, became a mark of the widening divide between the Colonies and the motherland. "A developing nationality was evident," writes Carl Degler in Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America. "Americans ... made up words ... 'Pie' in England, to this day, means a meat pie, but in the colonies that was a 'potpie.' 'Pie' was reserved for the fruit pastry."

Yet sweetness was not a given: Even after the Revolution, American cooking retained a British flavor. The first American cookbook, Amelia Simmons' 1796 American Cookery, shows an equal predilection for savory and sweet pies: apple, fig, dewberry (kind of like a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry), mock pork, real pork, and pumpkin (at the time, a savory pie) all made appearances. But in this land overflowing with botanical possibilities, where orchards sprang and apples grew in infinite variety, that balance was not to last. Americans embraced the fruit pie, the perfect vehicle for the bounty of the season.

Yet England, too, had orchards. So what made America so obsessed with sweet pie? To find out, I called up several pastry historians, all of whom were stumped. Then I put the question to David Shields, a Southern food historian at the University of South Carolina. "This is a relatively simple matter," Shields told me immediately. The real turn came in the 1810s, with the establishment of a mainland U.S. sugar refining industry, whose plantations sprawled across Georgia and Louisiana. Overnight, the once scarce resource became commonplace and cheap. American homemakers began churning out jellies, jams, preserves, wine-and fruit pies. "Sweet pies are an expression of the transformation of home cooking by sugar," Shields told me.

For those living in a land without sugar production, saccharine sweets must have been "an astonishment, a kind of intoxication," as Michael Pollan writes in The Botany of Desire. This new ecstasy, combined with the spread of fruit orchards across the country, proved a winning combination. From then on, pie was permanently imprinted on American tastes, bound up in the American mythology of Johnny Appleseed, simplicity, and nostalgia for home. Troops in World War I fought for their mothers-and apple pie. "Pie is the food of the heroic," the New York Times wrote in 1902. "No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished."

For many, making pie was about being resourceful, about making sweetness out of suffering. This ethos is encapsulated in what Paula Haney, founder of Chicago's Hoosier Mama Pie Company, calls "desperation pies." When nothing was in season and there was nothing in the larder, American homemakers used their imaginations. They baked pies at their most basic, pies made of nothing: chess pies, cream pies, vinegar pies, oatmeal pies sweetened to taste like pecan pie. Hoosier cream pies, for instance, are made up of little more than cream and sugar, but "the flavor is wonderful-somewhere between crème brulée and melted caramel ice cream," writes Haney in the Hoosier Mama Book of Pie.

As Americans headed West, they made what they could of the land. As if by culinary alchemy, they turned vegetables-rhubarb (now known as "the pie plant"), green tomatoes, sweet onions-into sugary desserts reminiscent of home. In their quest for the sweetness, some even turned to more desperate measures. In the 1930s Depression era, Ritz crackers began printing recipes for " mock apple pie," made by soaking crackers in cinnamon, lemon, and vanilla, to use in place of apple filling-a creation almost as weird as the original "cofyn" pies.

In a way, pie has come full circle. It started as a way to transform just about any animal into dinner; now it's a way to transform just about any plant into dessert. And the American approach to pie has won fans in the Old World as well. Emily Elsen, founder of Brooklyn, New York, pie shop Four and Twenty Blackbirds, told me her pies have become especially popular in pastry-loving Paris, where her cookbook has been republished. Yet when it comes to pastry, the lexical divide between Europe and America may not have completely been conquered. Guess what many of her European customers call her pies? Cakes.
In addition to the sources mentioned, the author would like to thank Rene Marion of Bard High School Early College and Rebecca Claire Bunschoten.

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How Did Pie Evolve From a Medieval Crow-Meat Casserole Into America's Favorite Dessert?

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If you're planning on stuffing your face with pie on Saturday in honor of the geometric ratio whose digits march on to infinity, you'll probably take two things for granted. The first is that the pie will be round-after all, if pies weren't circular, their only relationship to pi would be homophonous.

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My great grandmas favorite thing to make was pies

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My great grandmas favorite thing to make was pies

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She would make everything home made. Also she would pick fresh fruits out of her garden.

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Roast Beef & Franconia Potatoes were the big deal in the 1910s. Also Yorkshire pudding from the British as a doughy side dish.

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Nowadays, you can feast on a balanced supper of Twinkie burgers and cronuts, but in simpler times, man had to make do with more basic foods, like something called a turnip. In an effort to better understand our culinary history (and Nana), we attempted to plot out a typical dinner from each decade in the 20th century. You'll be informed, you'll be amused, and you'll be glad you never had to eat anything called "liver loaf".

Buffalo Chicken Beer Cheese Fondue Fries Are Like an Edible Sports Bar

1900s
CHICKEN PUDDING
A dish that had been in America's cooking repetoire since long before the turn of the century, chicken pudding was still holding steady into the 1900s. And it wasn't a chicken and gelatin blend. Rather, it was chicken swimming in seasoned, creamy batter. Vegetables like mashed turnips might've served as complements. And for dessert, you could devour a layered ice cream orb, or "bombe".

1910s
ROAST BEEF & FRANCONIA POTATOES
Hearty stuff like beef (it really was for dinner!!) and Franconia potatoes ( spuds marinated in the meat juices) filled many American bellies in the '10s. We also sometimes cribbed Yorkshire pudding from the British as a doughy side dish, before washing it all down with strawberry sponge cake.

1920s
CHICKEN À LA KING
Gatsby might've been noshing on champagne-soaked caviar, but for the average Prohibition-era person, something like Chicken à la King (aka a cream-sauce covered dish of poultry and veggies over rice or pasta) was a little more typical. Some people even believe it was invented around then, possibly at NYC's original Delmonico's. Salads were also a big deal -- the Caesar was first dished in '24. As for sweets, this decade opted for the splashy pineapple upside-down cake.

1930s
CREAMED CHIPPED BEEF
Owing to that whole "Great Depression" business, the '30s were a pretty lean dinner time. This basic dish -- beef covered in a white sauce, usually served over toast -- was one entree most people could make without breaking the bank (and it was significantly more appetizing than another option: dandelion salad). Sugar cravers made baked apples, which were simply cored and then baked with some cinnamon, butter, and sugar.

1940s
LIVER LOAF
Overall, the '40s weren't nearly as dire as the previous decade (especially once that war production cash flowed in), but families weren't whipping up five-course meals during the WWII ration years. Instead, they'd go with a centerpiece like liver loaf (it has "B vitamins that help keep you smiling with glowing health!" said an ad from that era) paired with veggies like buttered spinach. When dessert was an option, it might be a simple sherbet or banana drop cookies.

1950s
TUNA NOODLE CASSEROLE
With the war rations and Great Depression officially behind us, the 1950s became a veritable casserole city. Tuna noodle was a signature, and since it had veggies, it sometimes spared kids from a common(ly reviled) side dish of the era: lima beans. If you got dessert, it was almost definitely gonna be a Jell-O "salad" with a whipped topping. In fact, these treats were so in vogue that Jell-O took things too literally and marketed gelatins with actual salad flavors, like celery. You don't see them around today for a reason.

1960s
BEEF BOURGUIGNON
In case you lost your meticulous notes from Julie & Julia, this was the decade when everyone became obsessed with Julia Child. Her inaugural cookbook dropped in '61, and from then on, everyone wanted to make French cuisine at home. Julia's signature dish was beef bourguignon, and there were plenty other dinner ideas in her 726-page bestseller Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Regardless of your haute French recipe of choice, the tunnel of fudge cake was the confectionery icon to beat.

1970s
SLOW COOKER GOURMET
By the time the '70s rolled around, people were starting to jump off the French food train and search for something new (though they made some allowances -- cocaïne quiche blew up in the disco age). Enter the Crock Pot, which debuted in '71 and quickly became a kitchen essential. Stews, casseroles, and other slow cooker meals were a common sight on dinner tables. Afterwards, families might treat themselves to slices of carrot cake.

1980s
SLOPPY JOES
These guys did pretty well in the previous decade, and Joe fever raged on into the '80s. Manwich had a pretty big moment, but plenty of people whipped up their own homemade sauce-bomb sammies, too. The health-conscious who wouldn't pair 'em with French fries might've served some tri-color pasta on the side. And seeing as this was the decade that saw the Cheesecake Factory emerge as a legit chain, it's no surprise a slice of cheesecake was a common treat.

1990s
FAJITAS
They certainly existed earlier, but fajitas exploded onto the scene in the '90s, when they started appearing on chain restaurant menus around the country and inspiring chefs at home to heat up a skillet. If you were lucky, there might've been cookie cake leftovers from your soccer team party for dessert! (Spoiler Alert: You were never lucky. That stupid midfielder had, like, five slices!)

Kristin Hunt is a food/drink staff writer for Thrillist. Some of her strongest friendships are built on cheeseburgers. Follow her at @kristin_hunt.

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What's for dinner: America's meals from 1900 to 2000

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Nowadays, you can feast on a balanced supper of Twinkie burgers and cronuts, but in simpler times, man had to make do with more basic foods, like something called a turnip. In an effort to better understand our culinary history (and Nana), we attempted to plot out a typical dinner from each decade in the 20th century.

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Cocktail parties were a BIG thing in the 1910s. It become a HUGE thing especially in 1917.

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In 1917 the Selective Service Act passes the U.S. Congress, giving the President the power of conscription

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November 17 - Action of 17 November 1917: United States Navy destroyers USS Fanning and USS Nicholson capture Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-58 off the south-west coast of Ireland, the first combat action in which U.S. ships take a submarine (which is then scuttled).