The protagonist of this roll is culinary history’s most successful illusion of a name. Cream cheese was born in 1872 in Chester, New York, where a dairyman named William Lawrence perfected a fresh, spreadable, rich cheese. When the product went to market, its brand took the name of a city then considered the emblem of fine dairy: Philadelphia. The cheese was never made in that city; but the name has traveled with it for a hundred and fifty years.

A century later, that cheese met sushi in the city whose name it carried, and the Philadelphia Roll was born. The cheese roll is the family’s most generous member: here, cream cheese is not the accompanist but the lead.

The secret of good cream cheese is its youth. The sharpness of aged cheeses overwhelms seafood; cream cheese is fresh, soft and modest. It does not overpower; it carries. Its cool, faintly tangy density lays a broad, calm ground between the sweetness of the rice and the sea-scent of the nori.

The name is a legend; the thing itself is true. The palate never confuses the two.