you have done potatoes a profound insult by not including them in this list
but for some reason my fealty to potato does not extend to tomatoes and eggplant quite the same way. i feel toward potatoes sort of how gary Larson feels about cows
After doing some Google searches I realized the plants were related and eventually it sort of made sense. Peppers are almost like a very dry, very firm tomato.
In hindsight it's obvious but at the time it was very surprising.