Legend has it that Spain’s Queen Isabella thought chocolate strange when it was first presented by Columbus to her royal court. But how she loved Valencia oranges! Less-favorable food items, including the odd brown substance from the Americas, were said to improve their standing in the court only when paired with Isabella’s oranges.

Today, of course, most Americans tend to do just the opposite: we use chocolate to make fruit more appealing. Either way, dipping a tart sliver of orange rind into bittersweet chocolate (never milk chocolate — or worse, white!) improves both products: the dark, sinful confection is ennobled by the presence of something healthier; the virginal fruit is made vastly sexier. Chocolate-dipped strawberries don’t have the same play of sweet and bitter, and pineapple chunks — well, that’s just egregious. To treat yourself like true royalty, it’s orange or nothing.

Available for 25 cents per slice at the Chocolate Dipper, 200 State Street, Boston, (617) 439-0190 and 199 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, (617) 969-7252; and for $6 per 10-slice bag at L.A. Burdick Chocolates, 52 Brattle Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, (617) 491-4340.