Ripe Tomato Pickle

This is a room-temperature crock pickle with no heat step, no salt, and no stated vinegar strength, and it cannot be recommended as written. What follows explains where it fails rather than how to rescue it.

• Nothing is ever heatedThe tomatoes go into the jar raw and the vinegar goes in cold. There is no step at any point that would destroy yeasts, moulds or bacteria carried in on the fruit, and the jar sits at room temperature for a fortnight.
• Pinpricks do not acidify a whole tomatoThe single pin hole is meant to let vinegar in, but acid penetrates a whole fruit slowly and unevenly. The interior of a pricked tomato can stay near its natural pH of 4.3 to 4.9 for days while sitting in an oxygen-poor liquid, which is exactly the condition current guidance for tomatoes is written to avoid.
• No salt at allMany crock pickles rely on a measured salt brine to suppress spoilage organisms while acid does its work. This one has none, which removes a second line of defence.
• Vinegar of unknown strength"Cold vinegar" at this date could mean anything from weak homemade cider vinegar to a sharp commercial product. Without a stated acidity, the finished pickle's pH is unknowable, and pH is the only thing standing between this jar and trouble.
• An open stone jarThe recipe specifies no closure at all, and a stone crock, however covered, is not a sealed container. Over two weeks it invites surface mould, and mould growth can raise the pH of the liquid beneath it.
• Modern tomatoes are less acidSome varieties bred since the mid-twentieth century are reported to test lower in acid, and fully ripe fruit tests lower than green. Current tested recipes for tomato pickles and salsas add citric acid, bottled lemon juice or vinegar in measured amounts for this reason.
• If you want the resultUse a current tested recipe for pickled green or cherry tomatoes with specified vinegar strength, salt and processing time. Nasturtium seeds can be pickled on their own by a tested method as well.