Did there used to be dark chocolate and plain chocolate as different things?

[KatyMac]

Did they taste different?

The chocolate on Fry's chocolate cream and, say, Bournville?

Am I misremembering

I sun to recall that we had milk, dark, and bitter-sweet. Dark and bitter-sweet had little to no milk in then. Dark was not as high-cacao as nowadays. Bitter-sweet was very similar to dark, just sweeter.

But my dad traveled abroad a lot and brought us chocolate from all over the world, especially the Continent, so I'm not sure whether the chocolates I remember were from the UK.

My mother liked Black Magic in the 60s. The generation above that liked dark chocolate gingers (Whitackers). We also had Bournville plain bars and a fry’s cream.

Bournville now is only 36% cocoa solids
I know because DH bought me a bar last night when I asked for some dark chocolate....I was hoping for some 80 or 90% as he knows thats what I always eat.

Tbf I didnt specify and he doesnt eat dark chocolate so I got what I got....its a bit/very chemically but I dont like Cadburys (well anything thats not just minimal cocoa + ) anymore at all

Back in the day people always called dark chocolate plain chocolate. The expression dark chocolate wasn't at all common or well known. There might be a technical difference between the two (I'm not sure) but even if there is, hardly anyone was aware of it and everyone just called it "plain" chocolate. At some stage, maybe the last 20 years, the words "plain chocolate" sort of disappeared and were replaced by dark chocolate. These days younger people might not even know what plain chocolate meant.

Yes me too. Plain chocolate used in cooking.

Actually I think you're right, chocolate without milk was plain, not dark.

I'm sure there was bitter-sweet or semi-sweet, or something like that: the darkness of 'plain chocolate' with the sweetness of 'milk chocolate'.