have appeared the ripening container is shaken in accordance with a preferred method of conducting the process at the beginning of the third stage of preservation while and or after adding the vegetable oil after the third stage of preservation the tomatoes can be packed into glass jars together with the oil in which they ripened and the jars sealed one method of carrying out this process to be particularly recommended consists of draining off the oil used during ripening at the end of the third stage of preservation and storing the tomatoes in freshly added vegetable oil the oil used for ripening can then be exploited as a separate product e g as a dressing while vegetable oils such as corn oil soybean oil and sunflower oil are preferred olive oil is less preferred because it has been found to be more acidic than desired as the end product of our process one obtains palatable tart well seasoned fruit e g tomatoes or tomato pieces which are firm to eat and which can for example be consumed as hors d 39 oeuvre as a pizza topping or warmed as a vegetable the keeping quality depends on the keeping quality of the oil in which they are stored after the third stage of preservation all stages are usually carried out at ambient temperatures or less i e about 14 u00b0 to 20 u00b0 c while the present invention has been described with reference to a specific preferred embodiment thereof those of skill in this art will recognize that certain variations and modifications thereof will be readily apparent as.