The cuisine of southern France, corresponding roughly to the extent of Occitania, had far more in common with Italian and Spanish cooking than with northern French cuisine. Ingredients that distinguished southern cooking included sugar, walnut oil, chickpeas, pomegranates and lemons, all of which were grown locally. While pomegranate seeds were occasionally used to decorate dishes in France and England, flavoring dishes with pomegranate juice was a practice unique to the Occitan areas. The use of butter and lard was rare, salted meat for frying was common, and the preferred methods of cooking tended to be dry roasting, frying, or baking. For the latter, a "trapa", a portable oven that was filled with food and buried in hot ashes, was often used.