Canadian donair sandwich costume sells for $16,000

A dusty costume of a tinfoil wrapped donair sandwich has sold in Canada for C$16,025 ($11,900; £9,400).

The strangeness of the listing - and the fact it depicts a beloved Canadian street food - captured hearts when it was posted online on an Alberta government surplus auction site.

That sparked a bidding war for the never-used outfit between rival donair restaurants across the country.

The 4ft 8in (142cm) suit was eventually won by an Alberta donair chain.

For those unfamiliar with the food, a donair is derived from the Greek gyro and Turkish doner kebab, said Canadian food writer Lindsay Wickstrom, who has written a book on the snack.

Greek immigrant Peter Gamoulakos created the sandwich in the mid-1970s in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The restaurateur had ambitions of bringing the gyro to Atlantic Canada, but discovered that the savoury of flavours of garlic, yogurt and lamb didn't align with local tastes at the time.

So he put a slightly sweeter spin on the sandwich.

A donair has spiced ground beef shaved into a grilled Lebanese pita and covered in a sauce of evaporated or condensed milk, and vinegar and sugar. There is often a hint of garlic, and tomato or onion as a topping.

"The late night food that you eat after some drinks usually," Ms Wickstrom told the BBC.

The dish eventually made its way west to Alberta, where it was already popular with Atlantic Canadians who had settled there to work in the oil industry.

Canadian YouTuber Steve Wallis grew up eating donairs, but "it wasn't until until I was older and you'd be leaving the bar at two in the morning and the only thing open is a donair shop that I really came to appreciate them", he told the BBC.

The 41-year-old is among those who placed a bid on the man-sized donair outfit - he hoped to use it to raise money for food banks, a cause his late wife was passionate about.

"Who wouldn't want a profile picture of them with this donair? It's just attracted so much attention," he said.

Mr Wallis was eventually outbid in the final hours of the auction by Prime Time Donair & Poutine, a restaurant chain in Alberta with 30 locations across the province.

But Prime Time has since reached out to Mr Wallis with hopes of collaborating on a charity event that will feature the costume.

"If we can use this suit to do some good (and have some fun while doing it), then we think everyone can be a winner here," the restaurant told Mr Wallis in a message shared on social media.

Under a wave of interest earlier the summer, Alberta revealed the origins of the costume, which comes with a "silver-coloured body suit for that authentic tinfoil look!".

The one-of-a-kind outfit was bought in 2015 for an anti-drug awareness campaign that in the end was never produced. In July, it ended up listed under the "oddities" section of the auction site. Condition: dusty but excellent.

But there is one thing off about the costume, noted both Ms Wickstrom and Mr Wallis. It features lettuce - a controversial addition to the Halifax special.

"People in Halifax are purists about the donair," Ms Wickstrom said. "You will be publicly shamed, even driven out of the city for even putting lettuce on it."

When announcing their bid for the costume, Alberta's Prime Time Donair vowed to keep the lettuce on the suit intact.